Tobey: Focused on the physical

I think I learned (actually, Tom discovered) something relatively new about Tobey in the last two days: he's really focused on "things", on the physical, on processes, on how things work (well, that last one has been obvious for a while now). It is a little foreign to me how and why he thinks this way but I learn through experience, two experiences yesterday.

Mr. Piet - Sadly and quite tragically, the music teacher who came to Tobey's class weekly to sing songs and expose kids to playing simple percussion instruments, was killed in a motor vehicle accident Monday morning. We told Tobey about it that evening at dinner, partially because we wanted to be the ones first to tell and first to talk to Tobey about death. We also told him ahead of time because I didn't want him to blurt out, "I don't miss Mr. Piet" in front of the class like he has on two other occasions with other people. And as predicted, when we told him about Mr. Piet and asked if he would miss him, he said no. I didn't want to squash his expressing his feelings, but I did tell him to wait until later to say that because other people, like his teachers, are probably sad and DO miss him.

So the next day after school, I ask his teacher what they told the kids about Mr. Piet (since he was supposed to come do the music circle time that very day). She said they told them that Mr. Piet isn't with them anymore but he is always in their hearts. And that he is with God in heaven now with the angels. (You gotta love private school. This would never be allowed in our neighborhood school, neither here nor where we are moving, so we also hear.) So what does my child say? "NO. HE'S IN THE GROUND. AND HE'S GOING TO TURN INTO DIRT. WELL, FIRST HE WILL TURN INTO A SKELETON, THEN HE WILL TURN INTO DIRT."

This whole time his teacher is telling me this, my eyes are popping out of my head and I'm covering my gaping mouth in disbelief. "I am so sorry!" was all I could say. And she was totally cool about it, I mean, she knows 4 year olds. But just when I thought "No, I won't miss him" was the worst that could happen, then the whole scientific explanation of body decomposition comes along. Neither Tom nor I recall ever telling Tobey about bodies and skeletons and dirt. And thankfully, the teachers and all of the parents I've confessed to all thought it was totally fine, it was his way of "processing" what was going on. They understand Tobey better than I do. I was horrified that he committed such a huge social faux pas. They understood that he is just 4.

THE MARBLE RUN - So then last night we were at Franknz's for a last time get together with some close friends. Tobey was excited to go to Tyler and Vienna's and he likes playing with big boys Christopher and Nicholas (and therefore does emotionally latch on to some kids, like what Tom and I sometimes worry about). Apparently Tobey liked the little marble run toy that they have but had to stop playing to break for dinner. Tom said he could come back and play with it after dinner.

Well, after dinner came and went and Tobey played with other things, most notably the big fire truck and the Wii. When it came time to clean up and leave, he sees the marble run and starts the whining that he didn't get to play with it. I can detect immediately the disappointment and the "inconsolability" and "undistractability" of his whine. And in front of everyone.

To make a long drawn out whiny tantrum short, the last 20 minutes with some of our oldest friends from CA were made quite miserable. When we drove home, I was seething mad at him, not just for the whiny tantrum, but for ruining the last moments with our friends. I talked to him in the car about dealing with disappointment, about developing a strategy (I used less fancy words) so that he doesn't forget to play with toys he wants to, about time management (again, using less fancy words) so he doesn't run out of time to do things he wants to (which happens too often), about how I was also sad to see our friends for the last time in a while. I wanted to talk to him at bedtime too because I was so full of thoughts I wanted to "download" to him, but a more composed (but equally as frustrated) Tom put him to bed instead.

I started psychoanalyzing why the whine. Was he tired? (He actually had a 2 hour nap.) Was he sad about seeing T, V, C and N for the last time? Was he clingy because I had yelled at him and Eli in the car earlier in the afternoon? What was the deal?

Tom put it pretty simply: Tobey is just into concrete "things". When he goes to a new place, he finds a toy he likes and he latches on to it and carries it around everywhere. It doesn't matter as much to him who he is playing with as much as what he is playing with. I remember his Pre3 teacher saying that when Tobey settles into an activity after arriving at school, he picks what he wants to do and he does it. If there are kids already playing it, he will join them. If there's no one, he'll go over and do it anyway. Both the Pre3 teacher and our pediatrician like that independence. Sure, if you put it that way. But at Franknz's, his obsession with that marble run put him in such a funk that he missed an opportunity to say goodbye happily to his own friends, let alone mine. Now I think I will have a bias towards marble runs because they will remind me of last night. It's a shame too because I think they are cool.

Tom said that the focus on the concrete is also why Tobey said what he said about Mr. Piet. Tobey might not be socially or emotionally mature enough to even know what feelings he may or may not have about Mr. Piet not being with us anymore. Although I wished he would miss Mr. Piet, I couldn't really expect him to. I remembered learning of the passing of an acquaintance in high school and wanting to be more emotional about it but it just didn't happen that way. And so Tobey's response is just very logically oriented -- the way he is reacting to it is to explain what he knows scientifically about what happened to Mr. Piet's body (although, Tom and I did note that we need to tell Tobey there is a difference between someone's body and soul). It's like when Tom was living at home one summer during high school and accidentally forgot the parking break and crashed the family's VW Rabbit into a tree. One would expect Tom's dad to come out yelling, "How could you do this?!" But instead Tom's dad analyzed, "Hmm, how DID you do this? Maybe we can take a wench and bend this part to get it out, etc." Even Tom knew he dodged a bullet with his dad who chose logical over emotional.

As for "why" he is this way, speaking of fathers and sons, Tom says that he thinks he is this way. This might explain why sometimes if Tom is deep into something (researching a camera lens, figuring out his GPS map, working on a task) and if I come to him and start talking about something (it could be even semi-deep), after I'm done talking, he'll be like, "Yeah, okay...So you know I think I found the 50mm lens I want for the camera..." Shoot, he doesn't even have to be "deep" in the middle of something. We could be just chatting, he tells me all about his lens and finishes the topic. Then I talk about something else. He WILL return to the topic of the lens. And in the words of Pastor Paul: "I'm not telling you what I think. I'm telling you what I KNOW." To Tom's credit, he does know when something is more serious. He won't just start talking about camera lenses if I'm pouring out my guts. That's probably why we can joke about his myopic focus on things because it usually doesn't occur in seriously deep discussion.

So although I'm learning that me and Tobey are completely different in this area, apparently I can learn to get along with someone like Tobey, because I've learned how to get along with Tom. And I recognize the yin and yang of the relationship: when I'm feeling distracted because of something I'm emotional over, Tom might still be able to think logically through a problem. It's not to say Tom doesn't feel anything or ever get mad (same with Tobey). But that kind of logic and focus, tempered with social nuances and cues, can be a real strength.