Fake Crying

By the time Jackson was just a couple of months old we had gotten pretty good at the art of determining what his cries meant. He had a specific cry for hungry, for gas, for just a little tired, and a real distinct one for too tired to try to fall asleep. Around one year of age a new cry entered into the lexicon. We were pretty sure it was an angry cry because we would hear it at lights out time when we left him alone in his darkened room to sleep. And it would stop as soon as we reentered the room. However, at around two years of age, the newest one entered in - the fake cry.

It happens several times a day, usually when Jackson doesn't get what he wants or when he has to do something he doesn't want to do. We know it's a fake cry because it is seldom accompanied by tears and he can turn it off in a nanosecond. Well last week, I asked him to go wash his hands for dinner and (as always) he launched into his fake cry with gusto. I followed him into the bathroom to monitor his handwashing progress and caught him watching himself cry in the mirror. He would occasionally stop and change facial expressions or sounds. When he saw me, he stopped crying for a second or two, then launched right back into it. So I joined him in fake crying and before long we were both laughing. It was then that I decided that I must capture the fake cry on video.

I only had to wait two days for this.



You know it can't be a real traumatic situation if you can keep washing your hands and say "I wanna see, Mommy" while maintaining the pretense of crying.

Clarice