"It Makes You Happy!"

Noah has a difficult time with empathy, reading facial cues and picking up on the emotions of others.  For this reason, we exaggerate a lot of things in our house in order to teach Noah.  It also helps Avery learn what emotions are, how to express them and read them in other people.

When we give our boys hugs and kisses, we smile broadly and exclaim, "Oh!  That makes Mommy SO HAPPY!"  When the boys are naughty or have disappointed us, we look as sad as we can, and tell them how sad their behavior has made us.  You get the idea.


This morning, Avery crawled up into my lap, hugged me, planted a big slobbery kiss on my cheek, then clapped his hands excitedly and shouted, "It makes you happy, Mommy!"


Yes, dear Avery, it does make Mommy happy.  And maybe, just maybe, I'm getting through to them at after all.