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Monday, June 11, 2012

Separation Anxiety

There are quite a few perks to being grown up. One of them is understanding that when a loved one leaves the room, they're not abandoning us. In fact, it's likely a fundamental piece of maintaining stable and healthy relationships.

Max doesn't know this yet. The interesting thing is that until recently, abandonment was the last thing on Max's mind. We could come and go and at most Max might holler to show his disappointment, but then he'd just belly crawl right after us. "Don't think you can get away that quickly, Mom!" This weekend, though, things changed.

In my previous post I talked about Max's play date. If you remember, I mentioned Max's anxiety every time I stepped out of the room. He literally began to cry every time. I'd never seen that before. I assumed it was a function of his apparent fatigue, coupled with a new playmate. Then last night, our whole family went over our friends' house to meet there their brand new baby boy. (What a beauty with strawberry hair! I forgot how tiny the new ones are!) His older sister is a month younger than Max, and someone Max has played with (or rather, beside) several times. But like the day before, every time I stepped away Max began to cry. He was irritable for much of the night, so I assumed that he was simply a little bit off. But then we got home, and as soon as he sat down with his "Mr. Wiggles," as Sean calls it, Max was all smiles.

I guess this is our new phase.

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