Star Wars to the Rescue, Again
December 30, 2010
It was cold outside, so I put on my new earmuffs. Noah stopped dead in his tracks. "What are those?" he asked, staring at me with rapidly darkening eyes. "Earmuffs," I explained. "They're kind of like a hat. They keep my ears warm." I watched his body tense up, his rigid little internal alarm sounding the different! new! unfamiliar! alert as he tried to make sense of the funny-looking circles on my head. Was it a costume? Was I playing dress-up? Did it bother him? How much did it bother him? "May you take them off please?" he asked, in his usual pained attempt to politely frame a demand as a request. "I think I'm going to leave them on, buddy. It's cold outside." As I said this, it was my turn to rapidly attempt to gauge the danger level of the situation, to try to figure out our odds of making it to the car without a meltdown, whether this was a don't budge power through teaching moment or one of those times to just give in for the sake of everybody involved. "It's okay, really. Just think of them like a funny-looking hat, but just for my ears."... Read more →