October 13, 2005 - Thursday
Miss Joyce called to Jeremy, "goodbye Jeremy, I hope... oh," she turned to me, "I thought he had a sad face."
"He did a minute ago, and he is VERY good at it," I answered, then briefly explained that Jeremy is very talented with his facial expression and he knows it. In this case, Jeremy was making a show about not being able to play with some meaningless toy.

When we got out into the breezeway, I said, "Jeremy, I think maybe you're going to be an actor." He didn't know quite what I was talking about, but he would soon enough. He tried again to look mad. "Oh, Jeremy, that's very good, you're acting like your mad and you're doing a very good job."
"I'm not acting," he said in his best voice of irritation.
"That's what I'm talking about, Jeremy, you're very good at pretending you're mad. I think you're going to be an actor. "
"I'm NOT an actor," he insisted, but just for a moment the corners of his lips turned upward.

We actually went home and watched some of the Special Features on the Star Wars DVDs to try and show the boys what being an actor really meant. Harry and Jeremy responded to it in very different ways. Harry was interested. Jeremy continued his mock annoyance.

Jeremy tried again with the attitude we mommy got home. I cheered for him doing such a fine job. He got mad.

I understand that this angle could potentially be counter-productive, if not demeaning, if used at the wrong time. But I'm fairly confident that it did what it was intended to do today.


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