Collaboration Overload

My younger child has a new passion: Sharing information.

Malcolm likes to tell us (and especially me) what is going on. At. All. Times.

For instance, Mal was watching Mickey and the Roadster Racers last night. After watching a couple of episodes "with" him while I cleaned up the kitchen, I went into the back room to take out my contacts and get dressed for bed. While I was back there, he hit pause and ran back to tell me something amusing he'd enjoyed at least four times.

When we were at my parents' house last weekend, every time my Dad would say something funny, Malcolm would run into the room where I was (which, in an open floorpan, is basically the same room) and repeat it.

Mal plays a lot of Lego Star Wars right now, and he was already pretty big on the "Watch this!" then monitoring that our eyeballs were pointing at his screen at all times. But now, he stops playing to ask which characters we think he should play (and sometimes he does play them, but usually he already knows who he wants to utilize); he also will wonder out loud, "Who can use the force for this part?" even though he knows the answer... and will wait until one of us chimes in to proceed.

Adding to some frustration and exhaustion here is that he still just doesn't not know (or care?) about conversation etiquette in any fashion. James and I will be mid-sentence in an involved conversation, and he'll just say, "Hey, um, also..." and tell us something about what he just saw on TV or something funny he thought of.

Beyond interrupting is that he can't seem to listen in order to have an actual 2-sided conversation. He's been to Bricks and Minifigs (a neat, unauthorized LEGO reseller) a few times, and the people who work there seem impressed with his knowledge of characters and vehicles. They've tried to engage him with their own cool tidbits, and Mal just doesn't seem to be able to accept information instead of saying, "I know but, this is..." and going on with what he wants to talk about.

After I started this blog post, he decided that he wanted to play with his Sonic characters, and I told him I'd join him as soon as I was finished. He's been standing by me ever since, talking to me about his dad's Rubik's cube, or asking if I remember something that happened yesterday... even though I tell him I'll be ready a lot faster if he leaves me to finish this one thing and play alone a few minutes.

I'm trying to pull back and see a "big picture" concept where I can help him steer this "strength," whatever it might be, into a constructive and not annoying path.

But right now, I'm just too tired. My brain hurts.