Vol. III.7 - Triboelectric Tribulations

Did you know that if you rubbed a cat and a rabbit together, you would (theoretically) get sparks? This is because electrons will tend to rub off from the rabbit fur onto the cat fur, leaving the rabbit and cat with net positive and negative charges, respectively. I'm not sure even physicists really know why this happens, but it does. (All this business of rubbing and charging is called triboelectricity, by the way. Go ahead: Google "triboelectric series," just for fun.) So once each animal has accumulated a sufficient net charge, putting them in close proximity would (theoretically) cause the same sparks that you feel between your hand and the doorknob when you've been shuffling across the carpet in your socks, as the electrons do a mad dash across the gap to get to those terribly attractive protons.

I learned this in a college physics course called "How Things Work," which ought to be a required part of undergraduate curricula everywhere. First I muscled my way through the physics course required for math and science majors, scraping a decent grade through sheer, dogged, teeth-grinding effort. Then I went back and took "How Things Work," and the world around me suddenly made sense. (Professor Superfine, by the way, would love Liam. I can just see the two of them sitting in the floor with a screwdriver, taking apart an electrical outlet to see how it works.)

So anyway, if Liam is the rabbit, as we established long ago, then I'm the cat. I suppose I am something of a cat, if we're intent on assigning animal characteristics to everyone in our household. I can be kittenishly silly, in that wide-eyed, cartoon-character way. Then -- maybe just when you thought we were settling down for a nice, soft cuddle -- I move to an aloof distance, tail in the air, and offer you cold disdain from round, all-knowing orbs. It's not exactly a characteristic I'm proud to own. But Damian told me just the other day that I like to point out "with great relish" where I am right and someone else is wrong. That sounds unfortunately like the anthopomorphized cat.

What I'm saying is that Liam and I are rubbing each other wrong. You might say that we are currently allergic to each other. If you are coming from a Western mindset and you use that expression, then you're saying it to be funny. If you are familiar with Eastern medicine, then you are likely using the phrase in all seriousness and referring to electromagnetic energy fields and a genuine physiological response. Whether you accept this idea of personal energy fields as an actual phenomenon or not, the result in our household is the same: Sparks, figuratively speaking.

It cracks me up (when I have enough perspective to laugh), because Liam will just be wandering around, perfectly content to all appearances... and then the moment that he gets within a certain distance of me -- within the range of my force field, if you will permit me to continue with the Eastern medicine analogy -- he instantly begins to manifest irritation, in the form of a grunting whine. Or perhaps I am in the kitchen, and Liam wanders through. He might pass through my own energy field with no disturbance, then walk around the corner and see Parker on the floor. The reaction is immediate. At this visual reminder of Parker's intimate connection with myself, Liam turns around and grunts at me.

He takes his frustrations out on me in a way that he does not with anyone else. Babcia comes over for a tête-à-tête with him and gushes about how good and sweet he is. Well, he is, around her. He really is not all that bad with Damian, either. Liam pushes the line with Daddy, but he saves his dirty looks for me. The other day I cried because my two-year-old does not like me. I was not thinking clearly at the time, or I would have been crying harder because my two-year-old thinks that I don't like him.

It seems that Liam is finally struggling with some real jealousy over Parker. He likes Parker just fine. He thinks Parker is kind of fun to interact with. But he is no dummy. He can see that there is only so much of Momo to go around, and that Parker is getting plenty of me, perforce. This makes Liam irritable, and he begins to vie for attention in the only way that is guaranteed to work every time: by irritating Momo.

This is a well-documented toddler trait, of course. They all feel that negative attention is better than no attention at all. The answer, obviously, is to make sure that Liam's tank gets filled up with positive attention so that he does not need to stoop so low. The fact is that this is much easier said than done. Have you ever been around someone who just takes and takes and takes and does not know how to give anything back? My father calls such people "energy vampires." They might be perfectly nice and friendly. You might even go so far as to call them cute and sweet; but they drain you dry of all your resources. Spending an hour with them is tiring. Spending a day with them does you in completely. Well, that's Liam a good portion of the time.

I suppose all children go through an energy vampire stage. Parker is too young to realize just where exactly he stops and I start, so even when his needs seem exorbitant, he does not drain me in the same way. (Damian is a different story. Parker knows perfectly well that Daddy is not someone who is readily available, ergo Daddy must be exploited whenever one's current circumstances do not satisfy. If Damian so much as opens the office door, both kids go off like alarm bells. Liam comes shouting, "Play ball?!" and Parker works up a good I-can't-believe-you-haven't-picked-me-up-yet pout.) An older child has already figured out to an extent that being an energy vampire does not get him wherever he wants to go in life. But Liam only knows that he stops right here, and you start over there, and surely he must be able to get something out of it.

The fact is that right now I like Parker better. I have two kids. One of them unfailingly thinks I am the sunshine of his life. The other is continually miffed that I can't be more for him. Which one do you think I enjoy more? I do not feel the least bit guilty about this. (Not consciously, anyway.) How many times, growing up, did I hear my dad tell me that "love is not what you feel; it's what you do with what you feel"? The fact that I find Liam to be a little less lovable right now does not make me actually love him any less. Sometimes I like him and sometimes I don't, and that's just life; but I love him as only a mother can. Sometimes I enjoy sitting down and doing the things he wants to do, like draw more of those infernal fans plugged into outlets. Sometimes I don't enjoy it and I do it anyway. But after a bad day or two with Parker, I just don't have many resources left for Liam.

It is so hard to be two. No longer a baby, not yet self-sufficient. Bored with the shoreline, but afraid of deeper waters. Uneasy with the burden of choice, yet unable to relinquish it. At two, every moment of life becomes a big decision. This is why it is particularly poignant to watch Liam flipping absentmindedly through the pages of a book and singing his favorite hymn, the one we are asked to sing several times a day, which references the story of Jesus calming the storm. "Master... anguish of spirit," Liam intones. "Bow in grief [to]day... Waken... save I pray... Hasten... take control... Winds and waves obey My will, peace be still..." Here he waxes more earnest as the melody (or lack thereof) reaches its climax: "No waters swallow ship where lies Master [of] ocean, earth, skies..." He finishes in that same drone, nearly monotonous, but with funny rises in pitch in odd places: "All sweetly obey My will, peace be still... peace, peace be still."

We think maybe Liam needs to be reassured with each small crisis point that it's all okay, that he's heading in the right direction. It's very hard to come up with ways to praise him directly, and this tends to backfire anyway. Putting him on the spot in any way, shape or form earns you either a cheerfully automatic "Play ball?" or a whined "Get down?" ("You are down, Liam.") So we came up with this idea to say positive things about him where he can overhear. He is always listening covertly, and I know he picks up on it when I'm sharing frustrations with Damian. We're trying to give him different vibes to catch with his ever-monitoring radar.

"Liam is having a great day," I say at lunch, even when Damian knows that the opposite is true. Damian solemnly agrees: "Liam is having an excellent day." We avoid making eye contact for this so that we don't laugh and blow our cover. Liam continues to shovel applesauce with dried barley juice into his mouth. He is hardly going to blow his own cover by acknowledging that he heard us. Later, I stick my head in Damian's office door. "Did you hear Liam singing?" I ask loud enough for Liam to catch. "He can sing the entire Alphabet song in English and in Polish!" (Actually, he skips the middle of the Polish alphabet, but he can sing it with me, so I figure he has earned the compliment.)

I know this is all just a phase. There will come a day, perhaps, when Parker is a vampiric two, and Liam has moved on to be an intellectual four, and I will prefer to spend my time with Liam. Not that preferences mean much, when you're a mother. Your time, your resources, even your emotions are not your own. I look at Parker and I wonder, will his lot be easier or harder for having an older brother to follow? Or will it just be different? I do think it is hard for the first child, who must plow his own furrow. The second one may come along and decide to go a different way, but at least there is a precedent. And the parents are more experienced.

Still, each of these souls has his own, uniquely brittle shell. Handle with care.

Strong, strong soul
In a brittle shell –
My two-year-old.

Thinking, planning studiously
Running, jumping, look at me
Giggling, clinging, round and round
Right side up and upside down
Splashing, dripping, rubbing dry
Sipping, zipping, let me try
Sighing, singing, sleepyhead
Roasting, toasting, in the bed
Rising, shining, busy bee
Thinking, planning studiously
Up and down and back and forth
Prod and try and find its worth
Wishing, wanting, wondering
Watching, seeing everything
Dancing, prancing, whirling jigs
Little boy alive!

Kit Trzebunia