In writing my new book, I am doing what I always do: I go back in time, to my old writings, to remember and relive. The deep emotions I find in my old stuff is fertile ground for my best writing. I found this post from 7 years ago, and it really made me laugh. This happened when Nat was 17, and though we did not realize it right then, he was experiencing growth in his communication ability that would lead, eventually, to his anger and aggressive outbursts pretty much disappearing from his life. Because of this sudden growth, a space opened up for him where he was able to better understand when something or someone was bothering him, and express it, albeit sometimes in an unusual way. But unusual can be beautiful, as long as no one is getting hurt.<\/p>\n
I am reposting it in celebration of the human brain, which never stops developing.<\/p>\n
As the boys were all getting ready for bed last night, Nat got antsy again. He started bouncing all around, looking out of windows (presumably checking the status of various lights outside). He ran upstairs with Ned, and followed him into Benji\u2019s room. \u201cSocks,\u201d he said.<\/i><\/p>\n
Oh, no, I thought. Now he\u2019s after everyone to wear socks. Nat wears socks to bed, but I don\u2019t, Ned doesn\u2019t, Max doesn\u2019t. And I did not know about Benj.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cNo, Ben does not have to wear socks,\u201d Ned said.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cBen will put on socks,\u201d Nat said.<\/i><\/p>\n
Ben started to put on socks. Ben is a little afraid of Nat. Maybe a lot. That is one of the worst facts in my life.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cBen, you don\u2019t have to wear socks!\u201d said Ned, gently but firmly.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cI know! I\u2019m going to take them off now!\u201d said Ben. Here\u2019s the other thing: Ben loves to taunt Nat, and get him back for making him so scared. It is a cycle. The Circle of Strife.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cBen, you shouldn\u2019t tease him,\u201d said Ned. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to wear socks, but you shouldn\u2019t tease him.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cBen socks,\u201d Nat said.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cHe doesn\u2019t have to \u2014 \u201d said Ned.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cHIT!\u201d yelled Nat. \u201cWant to hit!\u201d But he didn\u2019t.<\/i><\/p>\n
They came downstairs. I don\u2019t know if Ben had his socks on or off, in the end.<\/i><\/p>\n
Nat said, \u201cWant to hit!\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
I smiled. \u201cNatty, that is so good that you are telling me!\u201d I rubbed his back.<\/i><\/p>\n
Later, when he was in bed, I went in and hugged him and kissed him. \u201cNat, I am so happy that you said, \u2018Want to hit\u2019 but that you didn\u2019t hit! That is so good!\u201c<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cGood night.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cGood night, Mommy.\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In writing my new book, I am doing what I always do: I go back in time, to my old writings, to remember and relive. The deep emotions I find in my old stuff is fertile ground for my best writing. I found this post from 7 years ago, and it really made me laugh. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pSTth-VL","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3581"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3584,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3581\/revisions\/3584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}