November 26, 2001 - Monday
When he used to play with his toys trains, Harry would often get very upset whenever the train was upended, which happened frequently as he inadvertently bumped the tracks with some odd part of his body while shifting around. I used to just be ready to jump on the situation and fix them to avoid a meltdown, but Harry seems to be changing. He hasn't played with the trains in a while and tonight when he started to go into his big "uh-oh" routine, I just made light of the situation and encouraged him to fix it himself. And, Harry seemed to get into the spirit of it. I'd say things like, "uh-oh, that's big trouble," and he'd repeat "big trouble" and laugh a little, and then try to fix the train. Sometimes I'd help fix some of the cars, but I always tried to make him fix at least one of the fallen train cars. After all, he is now clearly using these little overreactions to gain attention from his parents. Fortunately, this little revelation tonight with the trains shows that Harry is maturing in that regard.

However, that is not the case with him and his mother. Over the last few days, Harry has been almost merciless at times when he's with her. In fact, his mood can shift so dramatically as soon as he goes from me to her - he starts complaining about one thing or another, acting sad, acting needy or hungry - that it seems absolutely clear that he has not come to terms with the amount of attention she is given to his brother and is taking it out on her. It's all normal stuff I guess and they'll just have to work it out.


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