Sick Leave and Time Together

Dear Vinny,

I was home from work on sick leave on Monday afternoon and all day Tuesday. I was flattened by some sort of cold or something. But, it did give me some time to spend with you, even if I wasn't feeling top notch.

We sat together in the big green chair for much of the day on Tuesday. We played together in kind of a low-key fashion, since I wasn't feeling the best. I was trying to teach you how to be gentle. I thought that it would now be possible for you to be gentle because on Sunday evening, for the first time you realized that biting my finger hurt me. You bit my finger particularly hard, and I drew my hand away and yelped in pain. I saw on your face that you noticed my reaction, and seemed to understand it as pain. So I was no longer so reluctant to put my finger in your mouth. At first I just let you have my knuckle, but after you just nibbled gently on it, I gave you my whole finger, and you really didn't clamp down on it at all.

But I was teaching you to be gentle in other ways. You still have a tendency to grab my nose and twist it, or yank my hair, or poke my eye very hard, so I was taking you by the wrist and gently stroking my face with your hand. I was telling you the whole time that you were being gentle, and praising you for it, so hopefully you will know to do it that way when I say "be gentle" in the future.

We enjoyed an apple together on Tuesday. I wanted to eat an apple and you were sitting in my lap. I had planned to break off little pieces of the apple to give to you, but you decided that you wanted to bite the apple too. So I bit off the peel, and left some parts of the apple jutting out and you bit off pieces of apple and ate them. I ate the outer layer of the apple, but you ate much of the interior of it. You really enjoyed eating the apple and were disappointed when it was all gone.

Daddy and I were talking and we just think you are an incredibly thoughtful little boy. Not only are you figuring out that biting other people hurts them, but you are very generous with your food. I was holding some goldfish crackers for you to eat, and you would take them from my hand and feed them to me. And you like to share your sippy cup of milk or juice with us too, which is quite generous. You've been sharing your food for quite some time now. It is so sweet of you!

Love,
Mommy