Burl Tells Me How He Feels

I was talking to an older friend of mine.  Her children are grown, and she's working in a daycare right now.  She was telling me a story that I can't remember, but I remember what she said in the middle of it.  Since I started going to counseling when I was in elementary school, it rang true to me.  She said, "I really don't care about teaching them about colors or shapes.  I think it's more important to teach children to express how they feel."  Right on, sister, right on.  Lately, Burl has busted out with some pretty hilarious statements.  He's telling me about his emotions, and I'm loving it.  Here are the latest stories: 



The most frequent emotion that Burl has is sad, or at least that is the one that he tells me the most often.  I've noticed that he tells me that whenever he's bored, so he might have bored and sad mixed up.  I'm pretty sure that he got that mix-up from me.  I'm constantly mixing up bored and sad.  I'm not too concerned about that one, but I think it's cute whenever he says it.  I'll say this: it always starts a good conversation.



One time after I had to give him a discipline (gosh, I hate that word, but I'm using it for this space), he told me that it hurt his feelings.  That ignited another good conversation about why he gets in trouble for disobeying.  I think I got my point across clearly, or at least I hope so.  He can save the rest for the counselor.  

A few weeks ago, we ordered a new car seat for Fern.  She was upgrading to a face-forward one, and we were all excited about it.  Burl and Fern climbed on John as he adjusted the straps for her little frame.  A few weeks later, I was loading a DVD that I bought for Burl.  It was the Curious George movie.  Both of these things were very exciting to Burl, and they got the same response, "I so proud!"



This might be the deepest one.  I have titled it Introspective at 2.  Burl was looking out the window as we waited at the drive-thru pharmacy for his antibiotic.  Poor Burl had a double ear infection.  I heard him say something and had to have him repeat it to me, because I was sure I did not just hear this from my not-yet-three-year-old.  I did.  He said, "I thinking about my life, Mama.  I thinking about my life."  

My least favorite but probably the most important moment was when he correctly called me out.  We were cleaning toys, and he was dragging it out.  Every toy he picked up to put away got played with.  My patience was running low and I quickly gave up the opportunity to train him.  {Picking up toys seems to be the hardest thing to train.}  As he was taking a load of toys to his room, he was being silly and dropped them across the kitchen floor.  I was frustrated and it showed.  He started picking up/playing with the toys, and he told me, "be nice, Mama, don't be mean."  He nailed me, David and Goliath style, right between the eyes.  That led to a Burl-Mama talk where I got to apologize and tell him that I was wrong.  He spoke clearly about it with me, because he's Burl.  That's how he rolls.  

He can't say the c/k sound, but he can talk about feelings and emotions accurately and it makes me to proud.  I love talking with him, especially when I get to hear about what's going on inside his little world.