My bouncy ball and my house of mirrors

Tallie is my bouncy ball and Kaia is my house of mirrors :)

I love coming up with little analogies for my girls' personalities, even though I dislike analogies in general.  And though at work I sometimes jump on the 'being a mom is such a drag' train (or, drive that train), I really do enjoy it most of the time!

Tallie is what she is, all of the time.  A bouncy ball is so simple and known.  All of the colors in it and on it are seen clearly.  It may be a clear ball with lots of intricate swirls, but none of the colors are hidden.  You can quickly determine how high it can bounce.  It's function, form, and beauty are all easily seen.  Tallie is not a hard case to crack.  Whatever she is feeling she displays 100%, without holding back.  If she is happy, she assumes the world is full of delighted people that want to share in her happiness.  If she is feeling aggressive, she assumes everyone wants to get into a fight.  If she is distraught, the world is full of sorrow and loneliness.  A funny example of this happened last week.  Tallie was making over-dramatic quiet sobbing sounds in a chair.  I asked her what was wrong and she said meekly, "I don't know, I just feel like being very crying right now."  So funny.  100% sad for whatever reason, displayed for all to see.  This makes her very easy to parent, because she responds quickly to emotional requests, and it is easy to draw connections between her state of mind and her surroundings.  It does present a challenge to teach her that there are more than a handful of emotions to be felt, though.  She's a simple girl giving it her all in a complex world!  And no one feels the full force of Tallie's emotions more than Kaia, who is almost always at the receiving end of whatever Tallie Girl is feeling at the moment.  

Kaia is a totally different case altogether!  I'm Kaia's mom, and I'm not always so sure where even I stand with her.  Her emotions are complex, and she often hides them.  When she shows what she is feeling it can feel like she is using them to manipulate to get what she wants because she lets them out so strongly and all of a sudden.  Much of her time is spent with a non-descript expression as she studies what is going on around her.  If she's not in the mood the best comedian in the world wouldn't be able to get her to crack a smile!  I learned about a study recently that made a lot of things fall into place for me and my understanding of what makes my little Miss Kaia tick.  The actual study was based on trying to figure out which poor kids would become criminals and which would thrive or at least survive.  I don't worry that Kaia will be a criminal, but some of the findings made a lot of sense!  

(warning, if you aren't a research geek the rest of this post might be pretty boring)

Six month old babies (or around that age) from poverty families had heart rate monitors taped to their chest.  Their mothers walked slowly back and forth across a room and gentle music was played.  The monitors tracked the difference in heart rate between a breath inhale and an exhale.  Everyone's heart speeds up when inhaling, and slows when exhaling.  But there is great variance among people as far as how big the difference is between their heart rate when they inhale, and when they exhale.  One year later (at about 18 mod) the babies were brought back.  The mothers were interviewed about their childs mannerisms, behavior and moods.  The children that had big differences between their heart rates were the children whose mothers reported were very cranky and touchy in their first year of life.  They were also the children that would take a new object or toy and spend a lot of time with it exploring it and trying to figure it out.  After the interview, they played in a room with toys that they had never been in before.  Their mothers played with them.  At a certain point, the mothers abruptly get up and leave.  After a short amount of time, the mother returns and the researchers studied how the toddler reacted when the mother returned.  Attachment was studied- children that adjusted back to normal (quit screaming) when mother reappeared were determined to be in a good home environment with attentive parents the children were bonded to.  Children that couldn't calm down after mom returned reacted that way because they were used to mom often abandoning them for periods of time and were living in an uncertain (to them) environment.

As they tracked these kids into adulthood there were clear differences between kids whose heart rates didn't vary much between inhale/exhale, and the kids whose heart rates varied a lot (were quite a bit faster at inhale than at exhale).  Children whose heart rates didn't vary much were middle  of the road all the way.  They didn't get into huge trouble (for this study that meant legal trouble), and they didn't excel above many of their peers.  The kids with a wide difference between their inhale/exhale heart rates either excelled high above their peers, and even their middle class peers, or they were life-long criminals and always in trouble.  The difference between the excellers and the 'bomb'ers was their environment.  The children that were in a loving, structured environment where they got attention when they needed it excelled.  Children that were neglected and/or abused were the ones that became criminals.  Interesting, huh?  

I don't worry about Kaia becoming a criminal, but she DEFINITELY falls right into the characteristics of the children whose heart rates vary a lot between inhale and exhale.  She pays rapt attention to her surroundings, determined to figure out new objects.  She can study things for much longer than Tallie ever did (or does).  She is also a very cranky little individual (though that has improved drastically since she learned to walk).  Her first year of life, she reacted to changes in her environment in a negative way, usually.  I like to think that she has learned to be flexible a little bit, but it could just be my imagination :)  This study is not something I'm going to base my parenting on.  (Let's be honest, it's empirical research, it could be debunked tomorrow.)  But it does ease my fears that she is on the autism spectrum.  I think that with a lot of structure, a lot of love and reassurance, and little bit of elbow grease (and a LOT of Grace!), she will turn out just fine.  Ooo- maybe she'll even be an exceller!  I need one or two of my offspring to fund my retirement, perhaps she's my ticket ;)