my entp son never played with toys as tho they were meant to be played with
he made piles of chaotic messes that only he knew what they were
he was/is hilarious and had this humor that was way beyond his years. like before he could even talk he seemed to understand why certain things were funny. he really fed off of people reactions to him and turned up the charm and made everyone crack up.
humor was his way of communicating with adults
he was also very charismatic and everyone was drawn to him. he had big sparkly eyes...just a giant personality...very loving affectionate and silly
it is unbelievably cool seeing their personalities develop.
In a lot of ways this reminds me of my son. I've thought of him as being on the introverted side, but I'm starting to question that. I'm away at a family weekend thing atm, heaps of people here he's never met, and he is buzzing. Bright eyes, dimples, a little whirlwind of charm.
Normally at home he isn't around a lot of people, so I haven't really seen this side before, and he is quite happy playing on his own for ages. He can concentrate on one thing for a long time like puzzles or books, runs around the house with little animal figurines talking in a non-stop unintelligible stream (to them?). Or if given a new toy will sit manipulating it until he figures out how it works.
He loves
loves rough housing. Do most toddlers?
Loves to be tickled, even half an hour of tickling games isn't enough for him. He laughs all the time, shrieks, giggles, everything is amusing.
A very happy boy, big sparkling eyes, mischievous grin. He finds great delight in playing bluffing games. Will stand on the coffee table while I'm sitting on the couch, make a fake step or turn his head, looking away from me, or even just shift his eyes; as soon as he thinks I'm fooled, he launches himself at me, giggling like mad. Sometimes he can't quite keep a straight face while doing his bluff and snickers escape.
When he was 18 months I took him blueberry picking. After we were there for awhile, he picked a blueberry and insisted I bend down so he could feed it to me. I oblige. He walks up with his long lashed eyes and angelic face, proffering the berry. My mouth is open, and with his stained blue fingers just an inch away, his face suddenly breaks into a huge grin and he pops the blueberry into his own mouth. Oh he thought my expression was hilarious. Or maybe he was laughing at his own cleverness
He loves new experiences, go anywhere new and he lights up. Took him to a Japanese restaurant today (first time he's been), he was scoffing everything, raw salmon sushi rolls by the mouth full, slurping the miso, and playing merry games with the soba noodles. Chop sticks are his new favorite toy.
Of course I could go on and on...
Any thoughts on what personality he resembles?
[MENTION=13402]Saturned[/MENTION] - Your story definitely resonates with me. I was quite passionate about saving bugs when I was little. Animals in general... felt keenly for them.
Reality was almost too painful to bear when I was a child, I think I was born with existential crisis... on the outside I was easy going and quiet, but inside was a seething ball of angst. Nothing bothered me. All the things people wanted or did or said, I hardly noticed them. And on the other hand, everything bothered me. Was there a God? What is eternity? What does heaven mean? Is there meaning to life? Does the universe end? How can time work? How is it possible to change and grow and still be me? I looked in the mirror and all I saw was a stranger. Are people more valuable than animals? Why? What is reality really like? How does it feel to be a cat, an ant? How is it possible to feel things so intensely and not die? I felt I should be dissolving, exploding. How do these feelings and thoughts become part of a physical body?
From as young as I can remember I was either imagining some fantasy or thinking these sorts of thoughts. From five years old (perhaps younger, but I can't be sure) I would pray every night that I would die because I couldn't take the pain of
being.
When I did engage with people I was often intense, this was before I learned to tone myself down for general consumption. I was extremely sensitive to condescension. Even the slightest hint of it would make me shut down. I wanted to speak of the thoughts that obsessed my brain, the only things that mattered to me. Adults seemed to think it cute. It was very offensive. I remember one instance when I was 5, saying something offhand to my parents, something I had been thinking that seemed obvious to me. They laughed fondly. I was wildly embarrassed and hid behind the couch for hours. Refused to come out until everyone had gone to bed. They apologized for laughing, which made no difference to me. Their reaction had shown what they really thought, an apology changed nothing.
I often was unaware of how people saw me. Then someone would say something that would bring self-consciousness crashing down. One time my cousin and I (I would have been around 4-5, my cousin 5-6) were staying at my grandmother's house. We were playing dress up, then parading around the living room showing her our outfits. Back in the bedroom, my cousin tells me 'Grandma likes you best. She always smiles at you.'
I was utterly shocked. Whether the statement was true, I had no idea. I was oblivious to that sort of thing. But what really shocked me was that she even had those type of thoughts. It felt mind boggling.
I loved to sit in places that were 'not-places', as I thought of them. Perched in a tree, behind the shed where the gap between the wall and fence was just big enough for me, shimmying up the hallway walls to sit quiet at the ceiling, burrowing under all my stuffed animals so I disappeared, slipping between the hedge. I lived in fantasy. Reality hurt; it made me feel heavy and terrified and sad and full of more tears than could ever be shed in a million lives so I didn't cry because there was no point. Fantasy was happiness; it was floating on air currents and joy and fun and laughter and made me feel alive.
I taught myself to read sometime before I was 4 years old. My mom isn't sure because I used to sit with my books all the time and she didn't know when I was reading or when I only had them memorized. I know it was before 4, because at that age I went to preschool and wasn't allowed to go into the more advanced group, butterflies they were called, even though as far as I could tell I could read better than any of the kids there (most of them, according to my judgment, couldn't even read). I had to be a caterpillar first. It was the rules, regardless of ability. It made me furious and I had no respect for the teachers after that. I had an argument with them about it. Not a lot made me angry, but that did. I remember feeling almost incoherent with rage about that. Then I became slightly naughty since I didn't like the teachers. I had no compunction about it, though I was careful not to get caught. But generally, I was a well behaved student. At least, I behaved according to the principles I set myself. Anything outside that was fair game. And I was a masterful liar. Sometimes I would wonder if there was something wrong with me, I felt not the slightest guilt for lying. Though sometimes I felt guilty because I didn't feel guilty. However I had strict internal rules of right and wrong, and I adhered to them rigidly. Some things I would never lie about,
ever. My parents were very strict, and I found the majority of their rules arbitrary and pointless. So I didn't see that they applied. Breaking them didn't phase me, the only concern was not to get caught. I can remember specific instances of this from 5 years old, unsure about younger than that.
...Just some random things that came to mind.