Last night we found a ripe opportunity to share with the joys of sharing with Nicole. This opportunity came about as the following drama unfolded: THE FOLLOWING IS A TRUE ACCOUNT. NO NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT.

The Girl's love pretzels and they often can be seen walking around the house carrying little bowls of this wonderful "God given" snacks in them. Since Nicole had control of the entire bag Dana and I thought it could be disastrous for a kid to have that much goodness, so we tried to help her put a few in her's and her sisters bowl.

"OK Nicole put some pretzels in your bowl." Which she did. Then immediately after we prompted her to place a few in her sisters bowl. She reached into the bag and grabbed a hand full only keep filling her own bowl with more. This happened a few times as she contemplated relinquishing control of the bag. We said, "Nicole, put a few pretzels in your sisters bowl, so you can "share."After a few more hand fulls it seems she couldn't bring herself release her little handful of pretzels. It was the the hand just hovered there wanting to let go but the brain couldn't. The hand often diverted willingly to the mouth.

Finally she reached into the bag and pulled out a lonely, tattered and broken pretzel. This was it we said, "Come on Nicole you can do it!' 'PUT THE PRETZEL IN YOUR SISTERS BOWL..." She did it (of course she took a bite out of it first but something is better than nothing).

"Good," we said outloud, "Now take it to your sister." Each step toon an eternity as she made her way across the room. You could almost see her mind workig as she pondered the lone, injured, half eaten pretzel in the bowl. When she arrived I can faithfully report she stretched out her arm and handed her sister the bowl and did share. THE BAD NEWS WAS AS NATALIE TOOK THE BOWL, NICOLE TOOK THE PRETZEL AND ATE IT.

You don't win 'em all!

Recently we've seen Natalie explore the emotion of sadness. It's odd because we've noticed (after hours of detecting observation) that she goes to distinct areas of our house and pretends to cry. We talked about this a bit and said why does Natalie go to the kitchen and the corner of her room to fake cry? Maybe she is hiding. Maybe she wants us to find her. Or, maybe, she's looking for attention. In fact, what if she's calling out for attention rather than exploring the sad set of emotions?

After much reflection Dana figured it out! It turns out it has nothing to do with attention or hiding, but everything to do with the PLUG OUTLETS. Plug outlets? Yes! When Dana pitched her theory to me I thought she might have fallen off her rocker. Initially I couldn't connect the dots. Scratching my head, I thought to myself, maybe it was an ambient electrical current that triggered this emotional response. But since that was a stupid idea, Dana couldn't have meant that. It hit me when she said go look at the plug.
Click here to see the plugs sad face :(

Natalie Orlando

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