I was looking at the school photos with my daughter in front of our laptop computer. When Jasmine was so excited, she pushed the computer screen and hit the vase next to it. "WATCH OUT!" I screamed before calming my nerves to catch the vase.
When Jasmine found her father turning into shrieking grand mal, she stopped. Before she could find her words, she put her hand above the eyebrow, whispering the word sooooorry.
Immediately I realised I'd made a mountain out of a molehill. This was a a terrible situation, thoroughly embarrassing, and it really was my fault. I ground to a halt, mortified and abashed. I smiled. No one joined me. My eyes met hers. I saw tears welling up.
"No, baby. Not your mistake. Write this across your heart: daddy isn't angry with you." I gave her a big kiss on the forehead. Jasmine tried to pull herself together but seemed poleaxed. "Flower broken?"
And her mother came to my rescue. "Flowers," we chorused. Within two minutes we were dancing with the flowers in hand, with smiles as effervescent as root beer.
Researchers coined the term attachment to describe the reciprocating relationship between a baby and the parent. Babies come into this world preloaded with lots of emotional abilities. My response (such as shouting) acts like Post-it notes to tag different things, telling my baby's brain, "Pay attention to this." When I sat down and talked to my wife, she tried to reassure me that nothing was wrong, that I was tagging the wrong Post-it note to the vase, and that I could count to ten before yelling. "Come to think about it, you just screamed at the vase out of the blue, but the two-year-old would look at you with a tag that you're screaming at her. You did the same to me quite often, too."
Ugh. Jasmine gave me another lesson after my going wrong for at least 10 years.
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