A New Family Gesture

"Touch My Nose" ®

Couple weeks ago in the middle of the night Hale woke up freaked out and pissed off, screaming his head off. By no means an everyday occurrence, but not a real surprise, either.

I went into his room to try to comfort him, figure out if something was out of whack (diaper, foot caught in crib, whatever), and he was pretty inconsolable. He does this thing of reaching around me, thrusting toward the door behind me--beyond which are (in usual order of Hale's preference) 1) Mom 2) out of here 3) books, toys, strawberries 4) the door out to the hallway.

It is a very insistent gesture, and is often accompanied by a forceful squirm, so that I need to scramble to keep hold of him. Wily, this kid. And he's howly, too. Wily, howly, mad, and sad.

Well that night, I said to Hale, "Touch my nose, son." Just like that, simple as you please. "Touch my nose and it will make you feel better. If you touch my nose, it will make it easier to go to sleep."

And he did. He stopped crying--well, slowed from wailing to sniffling--and touched my nose. And it worked. "It" being something I don't know or understand very well at all, but that I think must be the value of placebo and distraction and most of all touch.

He cried a bit more, but wound it down in record time, touched my nose a few more times, and I touched his, and it just worked. He asked to be put back in his crib (which he does by leaning over and grunting, the clever boy), heaved a big post-cry sigh and went right off to sleep.

Jump to today, a couple weeks later. The magic of the nose touching had appeared short lived--not dead or anything like that, just not the miracle it first seemed when I'd tried it a few more times. But today, Amy and I were scruffling around, having a pretty heated conversation* about some dumb point of logistics and hurt feelings, really about as fiery as it ever gets around here.

And we were standing close together, I holding Hale, Hale looking in turn at each of us. And he stuck out his finger and touched my nose, right in the middle of a pissy growly sentence. And then he touched Amy's nose, right in the middle of her witty and stubborn rejoinder.

We were gobsmacked. Amy and I just looked at one another in awe of our son and what he had done. Somehow he had observed and internalized this whole big meaning in what I had thought was just a cute distraction trick, and then applied it to a whole nother situation. Wow, right?

Then he craned up and gave me a kiss, and then grabbed Amy's shirt to tug her in for hers. Hale had learned the value of placebo and distraction and touch. Saved the day, and taught us a new gesture that will be just ours.

Love that kid.


(*aka "a fight")