Skip to main content

Let me tell you a question.

Someone once told me, before I had kids, that if you ever have any doubts about whether you are an introvert or an extrovert, you'll figure it out pretty quickly once you have a kid who is the opposite.  If you are introverted like me and my husband, and probably my daughter, that means you get energy from within and from spending time alone with yourself (to re-fuel).  If you are extroverted, like my son, that means you tend to need other people to feel energized and re-fueled.

It's a spectrum I'm sure, but in a nutshell that's what the terms  mean to me.

For me, most of the time, parties daunt me.  If they don't daunt me, they tend to drain me. It is not that I don't like parties but I get what I want out of them faster than extroverts. I treasure my friendships but thrive when I nurture them one on one.  I used to really fight against this instinct in me.  I forced myself to be more social than was really comfortable.  Now, especially since my partner is an introvert too, I've become more accepting of that part of myself.

When my daughter was born, her cheery and independent spirit exhibited itself right from day one.  We confused the regular demands of a new child with extroversion and thought for sure she was an extrovert.  Us introverts were not used to all the demands on us for interaction that all kids need.  As she grew though, we realized that she in fact had a similar tendency as us to not really need outside stimulus to energize her.  She could play on her own for long stretches, she would get quite overwhelmed if a party was too loud.  She slept in, even as a toddler.

Then our son was born.  He has all helped us to understand another dimension.  He is an extrovert.  He  does not like to do anything alone.  He asked for some fruit the other day.  The fruit was already cut up and placed on a serving plate.  He was standing beside it and it was within reach.  I told him to help himself.  He insisted that he be served it by me.  Initially, when I got these kinds of requests I would balk, "I'm not your servant, serve yourself.  It is right there." 
We used to view this kind of request as an obtuse demand for attention.

Once we finally started to understand that it was not that he was too lazy to serve himself, but rather that he really would rather have the interaction that would come along with being served we have tried to make a regular effort to accommodate him.  He also has a very hard time doing activities without his sister or without friends around.  If I invite him to come with me to the store to get milk, and his sister decides to stay home their father, he refuses to come along.  At night, he'll wail that he can't sleep until someone comes along and holds his hand and murmurs to him until he can't stay awake any longer.  Okay, so this is what it's like to be extroverted. Poor little mite, stuck with us self-contained folks.  Now that we recognize it, we try our best to be aware of it. We still expect him to do things for himself, which as he grows he too wants to do, but we also are starting to marvel, in many ways for the first time, at what joy comes from sharing with someone else. 

His latest strategy is to lengthen a conversation (and his time with one of us) by saying, "let me tell you a question."  In other words, "stay here, right here, and listen while I think out loud about which question we should talk about but also about all the possible answers.  It will be better that way.  We'll do it together."

For you, my darling, okay, let's do it, I'm listening.



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I entered August without you.

 I won't visit you this month.  You won't call. I will raid your garden and you won't get any of the vegetables. I will make plans without telling you about them. We'll go to the store and not buy you one single thing. Whole books will be read and I will not tell you which ones. I will watch movies and not inform you. The nasturiums will ripen. Last month was different. I changed my schedule and took time off work to be with you.   I dropped all kinds of plans for us to be together. You sent me messages, I received them. I picked up food that I thought you would like at the store and sent you pictures of every beautiful thing I saw. I sang with you. We watched the Great Canadian Baking Show. You chose the recipe for the garlic scape pesto and gave me instructions for making the gooseberry jam. I am in August without you. You are in July.
1 comment
Read more

Fists full of lettuce

 It is a pot of a variety of lettuce plants. It was planted by my mom.  She has been living with Stage 4 bile duct cancer for at least 1.5 years (that we know of, probably a lot longer).  Standing and gardening are becoming harder as time goes on. She learned about gardening from her dad as a kid and kept on gardening every year of her adult life.  Sometimes the gardens were tiny or rudimentary, but with the help of my dad , they have become major and, at times elaborate, growing projects over the years.  Now it is a collection of raised beds and regular beds that hold a host of plants, vegetable and flowers. Something that was clear that first spring with Stage 4 cancer is that gardening would continue in a big way, cancer or no cancer.  It was important to order the seeds and start them inside and get them planted outside, no matter what. Spending time together in the summer with cancer now consistently involves gardening and following instructions. Plant...
Post a Comment
Read more

Shake your Bummy

In recent weeks, two things have come to my attention, this article by Mary Beth Williams,  T he real key to good health  and the viral hit created by Dr. Mike Evans,  23 and 1/2 hours: What is the single best thing we can do for our health?  Both coincided with when I was turning my attention to new years resolutions and reflecting on the year that was. Thanks to both,  a reckoning came to be.  Mary Beth Williams' candid advice was to get your heart stronger because you never know when you are going to need it.  She herself has been receiving treatment for lung cancer. Dr Mike Evans' way of putting the exact same thing? "Try to limit your sitting time to 23 1/2 hours a day".   In my day job, I sit a lot. I occasionally rise to retrieve something from the photocopier or to make a coffee, but an awful lot of the time, I'm on my bum.  This is in steep contrast to my night job. At the end of the work day, occasionally in the middle, I h...
5 comments
Read more