Acciental Learning

As a follow-up to my last post, I thought I'd share a story of some further evidence that Monkey is in fact learning something, somehow, somewhere...

I have this old wooden ring toss set that I was thinking of throwing away. It's just two intersecting pieces of wood that holds five pegs, with heavy yarn rings. The pegs have gotten kind of mildewy, and the rings are just kind of gnarled and gross ,for lack of a better description. Of course, once I got it out of the box to inspect it, Monkey was all over it, so I wiped it down as best I could and let it stay in the outdoor toy box for a while.

I should mention that the pegs, holes, and rings are different colors. Not something that really caught my attention, but it definitely caught Monkey's - I've discovered that he loves to put it "together," and gets almost agitated if I happen to, say, put all the pegs and rings on the "wrong" spots, which I have an annoying tendency to do, just to mess with him. So I guess we can check color sorting off the list - now I just have to wonder about his obsessive need to keep it in order...

Tales of the Uninspired (or "Why Paid Professionals Will Be Educating My Child")

I've been chatting with some fellow Mommies lately about "Mommy Guilt" for failure to come up with sufficiently creative and educational activities for our toddlers, and the consensus seems to be that while some people have an amazing skill for this task, others of us, not so much, and, thankfully, our children don't seem to be any worse of as a result. Accordingly, I am hereby abandoning future educational efforts and turning my child's educational and creative future over to those who have a clue as to what they're doing.

I should probably mention that, yes, I have TRIED to be "Fun, Clever Teaching Mom," but the record suggests it is not just not in my genetic code. You be the judge:

1. Flashcards. I bought flashcards for Monkey with colors, shapes, and various objects. Monkey, in turn, has perfected the game of "[insert number of cards here]-Card Pickup."

2 Educational Videos. "The Letter Factory" has been met with "eh" reviews, but at least the entire video has been allowed to play once or twice. Monkey's response to "Meet the Numbers" was somewhat less enthusiastic: "Wiggles! Wiggles! I want Wiggles!! PLAY WIGGLES NOW!!"

3. Crafts. Despite Monkey's willingness to wear a smock for almost all crafting activities, Mommy's "mess" factor isn't quite ready for much yet. Play-Doh is a good way to kill about 15 minutes, until Monkey starts to eat the dough. I know it's non-toxic, but I'm not ready to encourage snacking on it. Crayons are OK. Unfortunately, however, Monkey doesn't like to share, so it's not a good joint activity, because Mommy's desire to use the red crayon is inevitably followed by Monkey's NEED to have "MY crayon." But at least most of the crayon stays on the page. And the table. And very rarely has it ended up on the walls. Or the, um, TV. Yeah, rarely. And those Dot Markers? Monkey likes to take the caps on and off, and put the markers in his mouth. I just don't feel like we have a future artist on our hands...

4. Magnets. Mommy bought a fun bucket of letters and a magnetic board to put the letters on to spell different words. Monkey's version of this game is to (a) dump all of the magnets on the floor, or (b) grab the magnets from Mommy and insist on putting them away. At almost no time are they actually on the board.

5. Cooking. Mommy has tried to make mealtime more interesting by letting Monkey "help" cook. Sometimes this is successful. Other times, not so much. Case in point: While making spaghetti, Mommy thought Monkey might be able to participate by breaking up the spaghetti noodles. Since it wouldn't be safe to have him put them into the boiling water, Mommy got out a big tupperware container, put in a handful of dried noodles, and showed Monkey how to break them in half. What followed was a shower of broken noodle fragments that I am sure we will be finding the remains of for days to come.

I'm sure there are a few others, but I appear to have (perhaps thankfully) repressed my memories of them.

On the plus side, everyday life seems to be teaching Monkey a ton whether I mean for it to or not. For example:

1. After a couple of trips to the zoo, Monkey is very interested in animals right now, and particularly in learning how to make their various sounds. His favorite is the lion, but he also enjoys monkey, cow, rooster, duck, and dog. We're still working on bird, cat, frog, and a few others, but he's a fast learner. He also loves to tell me about "dolphins jumping out of water" after seeing the dolphin show twice now, and also still talks about the "elephant getting a bath." Awesome.

2. Colors. We've pretty much got the basics down: Yellow, red, blue, green, purple, yellow (a/k/a orange), yellow (a/k/a brown), and yellow (a/k/a white). Can you guess what Monkey's favorite color is??

3. Name that Tune. If they ever bring this show back with a special Wiggles edition, Monkey will no doubt be crowned champion. He has an uncanny ability to tell me what song is coming up about two seconds into the song or video. But perhaps this isn't brag-worthy?

It's Official - The Terrible Twos Are Here

Silly me... I thought Monkey started acting like a terrible two-year-old somewhere around 18 months. Little did I know what he had in store for me...

Since his birthday a week and a half ago, it's like someone flipped a switch, and he started having MORE tantrums with LESS reason behind them. Like this morning, I THINK he was upset that he didn't get the sippy cup that he wanted. Not that it's easy to tell, because when you ask him if he wants Pooh or Elmo, he responds with "Pooh Elmo." Um, yeah, they haven't made that cup yet, kiddo, I'm asking you to make a choice. And does receiving the "wrong" cup REALLY justify a five-minute screaming tantrum? Apparently it does...

I'm learning, though. I'm learning that if I ignore the tantrum, and go about my business (after assuring that Monkey is in a safe place where he's not likely to get injured if he decided to flail around a bit), the screaming AT me turns into screaming FOR me, and when I go back in, his arms are outstretched, wanting his Mommy, and he quickly calms down, telling me that he was "crying," in case I hadn't noticed. So, it's a start, but I haven't quite figured out how I'm going to tweak the technique when he inevitably throws a fit in public.

It's so disheartening to me when he throws a fit within like half an hour of getting up - it just seems to set the tone for the day for me, and I need to get past that kind of thinking, or we're gonna have a LOT of bad days over the next year or so. And I keep telling myself that I have to stand my ground and not just give in to what he wants, so he doesn't become spoiled. It's hard, though, particularly when Monkey is one of those kids who tends to hyperventilate when he gets really upset, and sometimes passes out. I've talked to his doctor, and read up on the subject, and I know in my head that the temporary passing out is just his body's way of protecting itself, and forcing him to take a breath, but that doesn't make it any easier to watch the handful of times that he's done it. So far, knock on wood, he has only done it once as a result of being purely upset, as opposed to injured, and I just pray that he never tries to use it as leverage.

Anyway, so as not to end on a totally down note, what are some of the good things that the Twos have brought? I think the highlight is that Monkey's communication continues to improve by leaps and bounds, and he is repeating and seemingly understanding SO much! When I was dropping him off at day care the other day (where he's in a new room), one of the teachers said to me, "He has older siblings, right?" Somewhat confused, I told him no, and asked why he thought that. He responded that Monkey is very bright, and has great communication skills for his age. That's so nice to hear, especially when I think back to the days I thought he would never say "Mommy." I still think he's probably in the middle of the pack as far as kids his age, and he is still difficult to understand at times, but it's always reassuring to have someone give that kind of a compliment.

People vs. The Wiggles

I can't believe it's come to this, but it's time for me to put on my attorney's hat and step up with my defense of The Wiggles...

You see, I've noticed lately that when I mention Monkey's extreme love of (or, dare I say, obsession with?) The Wiggles, I get reactions ranging from sympathy to almost disgust. "Oh, you poor thing..." "The Wiggles? They're awful!" "Thank goodness our kids don't like them" "We won't allow them in our house"

Really?

I can understand the sympathy. Any parent who's had a child obsessed with a particular TV show, movie, or character knows how mind-numbing it can get to watch the same things over and over and over again - the endless fascination gene must spontaneously combust somewhere between the ages of 5 and 10.

But what I don't get is the hate. When I've pushed a little farther, here's some of the comments I get, followed by my rebuttals:

1. "They're gay." Really? THAT's your argument? I hope you don't mind if I don't even dignify this one with a response, because it's clearly an argument crafted by a 12-year old, and it's not fair to pick fights with children.

2. "They're grown men - it's just creepy." Yes, they are grown men - does that automatically make them pedophiles or something?? In fact, a little quick research will reveal that The Wiggles were formed when several of its members met in school, where they were studying to be elementary teachers - The Wiggles act in its earliest stages was a school project, attempting to integrate learning with song and dance. How dare they!! And speaking of creepy, I am extremely thankful that Monkey has never seen, and thus never developed any kind of attachment to the Teletubbies or the Doodlebops - if you ask me, those are the kinds of characters that nightmares are made of!

3. "Their songs are so annoying - fruit salad, yummy, yummy." Setting aside my original point that anything can becmoe annoying in high doses, is their music really that bad? I don't think so. In fact, I'm amazed at the sheer volume of songs these guys have managed to put out, with the not unexpected outcome that some stuff is better than others. But the variety is sure nice - I'd rather listed to an entire Wiggles CD than have to fast-forward through our Sesame Street to find the three Elmo songs that Monkey is currently interested in, and then repeat those same three songs when Monkey insists on "more Elmo" and refuses to listen to more than three notes of a song by Big Bird, Grover, or Kermit the Frog. Sigh... And really, what alternatives are you advocating? Barney, with his annoying "I love you" song? I'll pass, thanks.

4. "There's nothing educational about them." Well, I'll give you that it's not Sesame Street, with it's emphasis on counting and the alphabet, but Monkey has learned a TON from watching The Wiggles, if you ask me. For starters, colors - Monkey could identify The Wiggles by their shirt color long before he knew their individual name (and frankly, yellow is still providing a small amount of confusion, given the Greg/Sam switch, which is unfortunate). But let's also not under-estimate the value of the dances - MOnkey has gone from merely watching the DVDs, to standing up and kind of bouncing and swaying along, to actively copying the dance moves. He jumps, waves his hands in the air, turns in circles, makes animal sounds, pretends to rock his bear to sleep, says "shhhh"... all relatively on cue with the songs and dances that he's watching - it's so much fun to watch, and he's learning to follow directions, develop his fine and gross motor skills, and I bet eventually he'll even sing! (Although the latter part does scare me a wee bit, if you've ever heard his father sing...) He may not be speaking another language, but he is very involved in the videos, identifying objects and characters and participating as if he were right there - pretty cool, IMO.

Ironically, Monkey's unwavering devotion to The Wiggles appears to be, well, wavering just a bit in the past couple of weeks, with Elmo providing some strong competition of late. Of course this would happen just weeks after I bought Monkey tickets to a live Wiggles show, right? Let's hope that he doesn't lose interest in them altogether any time too soon - the concert's not until the end of August, and Daddy and I certainly don't want to be the only ones in our family singing along! :-)

I'm still here...

Wow, it's been a while since I've written anything.

Perhaps not coincidentally, it all seems to go back to when Monkey dropped his morning nap... Our new schedule seems to be working really well now, and it has for a while, but man, it's amazing how much less down time I have now that we're a one-nap household!

That morning nap was great for so many things, not the least of which, I should not, is for me to get a shower! Now I often find that non-daycare days are "slob" days, and Mommy often doesn't get a shower, although at the very least she gets up about 15 minutes before Monkey to get dressed, put in her contacts, slap on some makeup, and take a quick pass at straightening her hair. That way, should we HAVE to leave the house for some reason, we can minimize the embarrassment if we run into someone we know. Mommy's actually gotten pretty good at this half-baked routine, actually, and has ventured out to the mall, although she usually regrets it as soon as she gets into a dressing room with unfriendly lighting (which is pretty much all of them, right??)

And, there are now that many more hours in the day to keep Monkey entertained... Thank goodness that warmer weather is starting to make an appearance, because Mommy is running out of indoor activities and is desperate to get out of the house most days (hence the ill-advised mall outings...)! Don't get me wrong - I have tried to find my craftier side, but so far, Monkey must not be impressed, because he is much more interested in scrutinizing the art tools - taking caps on and off markers, putting markers in mouth, biting tips of crayons - than using the tools to create a work of art to hang on the fridge. Today I even broke down and bought Play-Dough, which I KNOW in my heart of hearts that Monkey will only try to eat, but yet I am holding out on the slim hope that he enjoys actually playing with it more. I've seen some scattered about the room at his day care, so perhaps he's already experimented with the tasting and is ready for bigger and better things?

I was also sorely tempted at Target today to buy him some fun outside things as Valentine's Day present, most notaby a bubble lawn mower and a couple of small kick balls. But I'm afraid that if I buy these, the weather will take a turn for the worse, and I'll be stuck with a cranky Monkey who won't understand why we can't go outside and pay with his cool new toys. Maybe the Easter Bunny will have to bring them instead...

I am seriously thinking of buying one of those Learning Towers for the kitchen. Monkey has gotten in the habit of wanting me to carry him around WHILE I'm making his meal, which can be somewhat difficult, as you might imagine. He also likes to try to "help" put the lid on his sippy cup, etc. So I'm thinking this might be part of his "I do" stage, and that he'll feel more included if I get him up to counter level in a safe place that he can watch and maybe start to help. Those things are expensive, but it might be worth it to preserve my sanity!

Anyway, that's the latest from Monkey Land. I will try to be better about posting, and I hope I still have a few readers out there!

An update...

It's been a while since I've posted, and I didn't want you to think that the napping strike had done me in. Thankfully, I'm stronger than that!

Actually, the strike lasted about a week or two - it's a blur now. Monkey has finally settled into something resembling a routine again, and is napping consistently in the early afternoon, without nearly as much fussing (although a little protest here and there, just to keep Mommy on her toes). Sadly, his total nap time is still only half of what it used to be, which means less time for me to play around on the computer, not to mention do more productive things. But kids grow up, and he wasn't going to sleep forever. Besides, how much fun is that?

So, we've been trying to fill our extended days with new activities, and I will freely confess that I am stealing liberally from my on-line mommy friends, particularly since the cold (more like ridiculously frigid!) weather limits our ability to get out of the house as much as I'd like. We've bought some new art supplies, and I'm hoping to turn the time between lunch and nap into a quiet "sit at the table and do crafts" time, instead of the current "running around the house and chasing the dog and throwing toys and tripping and falling" time. We'll see if Monkey agrees...

I'm also trying to implement some semi-educational activities into our day. To echo a sentiment raised by more than one of my mommy friends, I'm having some "mommy guilt" over the fact that I seem to spend very little time interacting with and teaching Monkey, and most of my time just trying to keep him from hurting himself or the dog. I know that he's picking up on new things, both at home and at day care, but a little more effort on my part couldn't hurt. So, I've been looking at things like flash cards for shapes, colors, etc. Again, for all I know, Monkey will have zero interest, but it's worth a shot! Hopefully I'll be able to post about new accomplishments soon...

Hello, Goodbye...

I posted a while back about Monkey's speech development (or my concerns about the potential lack thereof), and thought it was time for an update...

Monkey is still a HUGE fan of the word "uh oh," although he refuses to recognize that it does NOT apply when he drops things on the floor on purpose. :-) In the past few weeks, however, he has definitely added a few new words to his vocabulary, words that are very clear and spoken with purpose, so that's encouraging.

Yes, Monkey has become a greeter, and also the guy in our house most likely to show you to the door. These days it's all about "hi!" and "bye-bye."

The "hi"s are adorable - they're usually spoken at a loud, enthusiastic volume, such as when I first go in to get him up in the morning, and you can't help but smile and shout "hi!" back...

The "bye-bye"s are pretty funny. Sometimes they're right on cue, like when I show up to pick Monkey up from day care, and he turns to his teacher, waves, and says "bye-bye," as in "it's been fun, but I'm outta here!"

Other times, they're a bit, um, rude? Like when my mother-in-law shows up, Monkey realizes that probably means that Daddy and I are going somewhere, and so he brings her her shoes and tells her "bye-bye," as in "take a hint - I'd rather hang with Mommy and Daddy, thanks." And our poor dog... Every time he goes out to do his business in the back yard, Monkey runs over to the open door, where either my husband or I is standing, and tries to slam the door, saying a loud "bye-bye" to the dog! He also says good bye to trash when he throws it away, food in the pantry and/or the fridge when he closes the door, clothes in the dryer when he's "helping" with laundry... you get the idea.

But he's also getting smart about when it's time to go bye-bye - if I so much as reacch for my coat, scarf, or purse, Monkey starts asking "bye-bye?" and trying to figure out if he gets to go along for the trip, or if he's going to be left behind. If he's lucky enough to go with us, he races to the freezer, where we keep our special treats for the dog when he has to be crated, and he loves carrying it over and throwing it in the crate, and then closing the door. He's also a huge fan of working the garage door opener, and is the first to race to the dog's crate and let him out when we get home (which sounds sweet, but is a bit less so when he promptly steals the dog's chew toy and begins to taunt him with it...)

Such a little personality - It's amazing!

It's a matter of perspective

As Monkey's next well-child visit approaches (a bit on the early side, since the doctor decided to combine an ear infection follow up with an early 15-month visit), I've been a bit anxious about the fact that he still doesn't have much of a vocabulary. In my mind, he says exactly one word clearly - "uh oh" (and boy does he love that word!). He also does lots of dadada and mamama, but the former only sometimes appears to relate to my husband, and the latter is actually a string of requests for "more." He also says "baba," which I've recently figured out is his request for his sippy cup, probably a carry over from his bottle.

But my mom and sister were in town this weekend, and according to them, he's saying TONS of stuff. Am I just not hearing it? Has constant exposure caused me only to hear a string of undifferentiated babble? Are my standards for what constitutes a "word" a bit too exacting for a kid who just turned 14 months old last week?

So we talked about some of the words, and I tried to catch them when I could. It's really all in the intonation. I couldn't tell you exactly WHAT he said when I handed him his sippy cup, but the number of syllables and the intonation have mom and sis convinced he said thank you. They also heard "hi," "bye bye," "night night," "peek-a-boo," "mommy," and several others that I can't remember right now. Yet if you look Monkey in the eye and say "can you say bye?", he will most likely just smile and say nothing at all, or perhaps he'll say dadada or something else entirely. While he's big on mimicking actions, he's clearly not so much into verbal repetition yet (which I guess is something of a blessing as my husband and I struggle to clean up our language a bit!).

I guess the important lesson for me is that he's making progress, and I suspect (and hope) that the doctor will tell me on Friday that Monkey is doing just fine in terms of those milestones we all worry about. In the meantime, would it be wrong if I keep trying to coach him to repeat just one or two more words by the end of the week??

Baby, I'm Amazed

I can never remember if the name of that song by Paul McCartney is Maybe I'm Amazed or Baby I'm Amazed... I just looked it up, and it's Maybe, which kind of kills the title of this post. Although I'm pretty sure the lyrics to that Lonestar song are "baby I'm amazed by you." So let's go with that.

But I digress. The Monkey - he never ceases to amaze me.

I don't know when, and I don't know where, but Monkey has learned how to go down the stairs. I'm thinking maybe day care, but it's a one-story building. They do have steps on some of the things on the playground, so maybe that's it.

Maybe it's just intuitive. But he is SO deliberate. It's like someone taught him a process and he's following it step by step (no pun intended).

I discovered this trick last night. I took Monkey out back with me so our puppy could do his business. Monkey and I were on the deck, which is only three steps from the yard, but there's a big flagstone pad on the bottom step, so I obviously don't want him to go faling down the steps. So there I was, letting Monkey play with his water table on the deck and strategically blocking him from an accidental fall down the steps, when suddenly he got down on his hands and knees and started deliberatey backing up slowly towards the edge... I continued to spot him, but watched, facsinated, as he lowered one leg down, then the other, then moved on to the next step, backed up a bit more for the final step, and then stood up and went toddling through the grass to his car! Seriously - how did he do that without ANY prompting whatsoever from me??

Now, of course, going up and down steps is all he wants to do. Sigh... So I'm being the devoted spotter, helping him work up his confidence, since it can only make things safer for him.

I'm just so tickled that he manages to continue to find ways to surprise me like this.

Mommy Guilt

They should warn us about this before we have children...

Not that it would make a difference in the decision, but still, a warning would be nice.

Before I had kids, I used to watch other people with their kids, and think about what I would do differently, better, etc. It was so easy to be a critic when we were just sitting on the sidelines, wasn't it, not having to scrutinize our OWN behavior?

Now that I'm a mother, I always wonder "how am I doing?" Monkey is generally happy and healthy, so those are good indicators, but we all have those days (or at least I hope we all do) where we're tired, frustrated, and maybe we don't enjoy our little ones as much as we think we should, and at the end of the day, after they're asleep, we feel guilty that perhaps we yelled more than we should, we didn't read our little ones a story, we didn't feed them the healthiest food, we didn't teach them anything new, etc., etc., etc.

Just one example - before Monkey was born, I was so excited to teach him sign language. I had a friend who had done it with her daughter, and it was so amazing to see her daughter asking her for milk at a young age - imagine how much easier life will be once we can communicate, the sooner the better, right??

I bought a sign language book. It sits on a shelf, still shiny and new, opened only a few times, glanced at, but not really read... Ah, the best laid plans... I always blame it on there not being enough time, but maybe, just maybe, I'm not making good enough use of our time? Should I be making a better effort to do things like this each day, focus more on trying to "teach" than just playing? Or am I being overly concerned? I do read to Monkey when he'll allow it - I try to do signs when I remember - I'm a smart person, married to another smart person, who will manage to raise a properly educated kid, right?

As luck would have it, however, Monkey has finally learned one sign - "more." He's been doing it for ages, and I didn't even know what it was at first. Turns out, he appears to have picked it up at day care, and started doing it before he even knew what it meant. But we seized on it, and tried to get him to do it with purpose, which has finally happened in the past couple of weeks. He will now reach desperately for that food item out of reach on the table, and when he gets my attention, will make the "more" sign, and even say something that sounds like "mo." And now we're working on the opposite - "all done." It helps, just a bit. When Monkey starts throwing food on the floor (which is inevitable, either as a show of his feelings toward a particular type of food, an attempt to feed the ever-present under his highchair dog, or general playfullness), I can now often stop him mid-toss, and take the food away, quizzing him as to whether he's all done or still wants more. It's a bit of a game for him, and it isn't foolproof (like when he asks for more, only to immediately turn to throw it on the floor!), but it's progress. Baby steps...