Looking For Some Attention

Brian has a new game.

Last week, as he sat in his high chair playing with a plastic "key chain", he accidentally dropped the toy onto the floor. The resulting "CRASH!" startled him, and he began to cry. I rushed over to pick up his keys, and handed them back to him, sneaking in some kisses and cuddles, too.

He stopped crying and returned to shaking and rattling, cooing and drooling, while he happily played with his key chain.

Before long, the keys once again slipped from his grasp. Again, the crash. And again, I stopped cooking long enough to retrieve his toy.

After repeating this cycle a few more times, he caught on.

"Aha!", his little grin seemed to say. "When I drop my key chain, Mommy comes back! She gives me kisses! And attention! I can interrupt her again and again and again. What power!"

So now, when I hand him a plaything to keep him occupied, he shakes it once or twice, hangs it over the edge of his high chair for a few seconds, and then...CRASH!

My limit for this game is about ten retrievals per toy, but Brian is merely warming up after this amount of time. This is when his older siblings come in quite handy.

"Beth!", I'll call. "Can you pick up Brian's toy for him?"

She cheerily acquiesces for the first few times, but after repeatedly climbing onto the floor after his toys, bumping her head on the table each time, she loses interest. At this point, I move on to Amy, who is infinitely more patient with this sort of game than either of her sisters. She will repeat the cycle for a good ten minutes before finally sighing in frustration and moving on to another activity.

Erin is a good "closer". By this time, Brian is beginning to tire from all the shaking, rattling and dropping, so after a few last crashes, the game comes to an end.

I am frequently asked whether I worry that Brian, as "number four", gets less attention than his sisters did when they were babies.

Nope. Definitely not.