Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Connections and Relations

It's amazing how sometimes it takes such a long, long, time to figure out why the human brain works the way it does. Earlier this evening I was giving Alexander his bath, and for some reason halfway through he started calling for something, pointing over toward the change table and towel rack, and pleading "moyne...moyne...moyne..." Unlike Rudi, who was experimenting with simple sentence construction and had a vocabulary of about two hundred words, Alexander at age 'two plus four months' is progressing a bit more slowly, and I could only figure out he was pointing at his pants (which he didn't want taken off before his bath) and was probably saying "mine...mine...mine..." He was getting exasperated a bit, as was I, as I couldn't give him back his pants when he was in the tub, and I really had no idea what he was really bleating about anyway.

In any event, the "nyownying" kept up unabated, and I called for back up, after just having barked 'STOP' at the poor little kid so loudly he shook, and stopped for three seconds before continuing his pathetic little chant. Katherine came in after my third quick yell at Alexander, but at this time my heart rate was up, I was feeling trapped, stressed, claustrophopic almost, and I needed to get away fast. "Katherine just take over ok, I can't deal with this!" was all I said before rushing out. Only about six or seven times in my life has this type of event happened, all with either Alexander (two, perhaps three times) or Rudi (three or four times maybe) getting into a pathetic little chant, continuously repeating the same word or words for a few minutes at the most, and interestingly enough, my reaction has been like this only when they are in the bath.

So I figured out exactly why I get freaked out, and its something that has me flummoxed. The chant completely mimics the sounds or words persons have made for some reason or other when I have encountered them in my 'experiences'. Examples are the tow truck driver repeating "Gotta-get-them-out...gotta-get-them-out...gotta-get-them-out" or the Chinese man pleading "Li...Li...Li...Li..." or the sobbing wail of one of the occupants of a car caught fire on the 401, mostly engulfed in flames when I pulled up, knowing my fire extinguisher at that point was completely useless.

Why did it take me six years or so to relate the two types of events, and why do I only react to their kind of bleating when they are in the tub? They can do it any other time, and I don't react at all. Strange.