The neighbor’s daughter is a big fan of Tin’s and Tin has always been a big fan of her. But when he met her friend, he liked the friend even more. So now we are trying to instill in Tin the need to be good to his steady friend (the neighbor) and not to hold the new friend over the old one as if she were better. Hard to do.
Also, although his oldest friend is the little girl that lives across the bayou, Tin is actually more in love with her father who is a bass player and the drum set he has in the back of their house. When you mention the girl’s name, Tin immediately says let’s go to her house and play the drums. Selfish pursuits. And again a lesson to not use people for our means.
Last night, because both the neighbor’s daughter and her friend had come over when our friends had come over, there was a lot of commotion in the house and more time in the pool than usual so that Tin’s supper got pushed an hour late – not a good thing of course as then the meltdown came within mere seconds of trying to get him to eat when we know he was starving. As he cried out and lambasted all of those around him trying to help him, we all concluded that we too react the same way when we are tired and hungry, but that we’ve all learned how to deal with it by not bringing down everyone around us.
Is that true? Perhaps not, I’ve never had a partner speak more tersely and rudely to me than when they are hungry. And I’ve seen one too many people turn against their true friend when a new sparkly one came along. Perhaps we never learn to curb these primal impulses.