on Feelings

It's a well known fact to anyone with any experience with small children, that all two year olds are pretty severely bi-polar.  This is something that has driven me crazy about this phase with each of the three children I've seen through it.  But for some reason, with number four, I am finding it surprisingly charming.  Maybe it's just because he's the baby so everything he does is cuter.  (I'm pretty sure this is going to have a deep psychological impact on him in the long run, not sure if it will be for good or for bad)  I just love the way he feels everything.  There is no guile or holding back or premeditation (OK, sometimes there is a little guile, he does know how to work the tears) but he just...feels what he feels and feels it completely.  When he is afraid (usually because Gavin chasing him with some robotic/animatronic toy--poor kid inherited my fear of robots) it's like his whole being turns inside out, he screams and shakes and attempts to crawl up my leg and onto my head like a cartoon elephant fleeing from a mouse.  When he is happy or excited (over the tiniest things like being told that yes, he can have jelly on his toast) he squeals in delight, clasps his hands together and does this little happy tippy toe dance.  

I even love the way he switches so rapidly from one emotion to another.  Last night he came with me to drop off Gideon at his Band concert.  He wanted to bring his toy trains with him and I told him "no."  So he did Sad.  His whole body droops.  His little mouth turns into a perfect upside down U, with a trembling bottom lip and then bursts open with a loud "Waaaaaaa!" and then (because it was clear I wasn't going to budge) he drops his head and droops his shoulders and slump walks out to the car like a dejected Charlie Brown.  We drive the two minutes to the school, listening to upbeat pop music and Gideon and I are talking and laughing and by the time I've dropped him off and am driving home, Jasper says from the back seat "Hey, Mom!  I feel Happy!  I'm not Sad anymore!"  He says it in a voice of wonder and delight, like a miracle has occurred.  He makes this declaration on a regular basis and every time it is amazing to him.  "My Sad feelings went away and I feel Good again!!"  And it amazes me too because even though I've been living with Feelings for 33 years, I often forget during the sad and mad ones that the good ones do come back.  And unlike Jasper, I am often slow to let them go.  For some reason I cling to my bad feelings far longer than they are useful and when they have finally passed I usually don't recognize that it's happened.  Maybe it's not so much that two-year-olds are bipolar as that they know how to let their feelings just happen.