Alex: Seventeen months.
Sep. 14th, 2006 08:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivka It's interesting to watch her internalize our house rules and routines. "Are you ready to eat?" we ask her, and she responds with "lunchtime!" (regardless of time of day) and runs for her highchair. She lifts her arms to be put in the seat, and then directs us through the steps that follow, in order: "Tray!" "Bib!" "Milk!" When she's finished, she'll announce, "Bib off, a down." But a counter-offer of dessert will have her asking for the bib again - a necessary prerequisite, in our family, for eating more. She even knows where people sit at the table - she identifies "Papa chair" and "Mama chair," and sometimes points to Bill's habitual spot and says his name.
Part of knowing the rules and routines is not wanting to be excepted from them. She wants to have her food on a plate, and she wants to eat it with a fork. Her plastic cup of milk is okay, but she'd prefer to drink from one of our big heavy drinking glasses. She'd like to carry her own PJs up the stairs at night, even if she does need to hold on to me with one hand and the bannister with the other.
On our walks, she stops at the corners, announces "street!" and holds up her arms to be carried across. (No, we don't count on that.) She waits until we reach the far curb before trying to slide out of our arms ("A walk, a walk.") But internalizing the rules doesn't necessarily imply following them. She'll run her finger along a book cover in a scribbling motion and say, "No, no crayon." "That's right," I'll say. "No crayons on books." "No crayon," Alex will agree, picking up a crayon and bringing it to the book jacket. If I don't notice in time, later on she'll bring the book to me, pointing at the crayon marks and saying, "No, no. No crayon," in a sorrowful, disapproving tone - as if the damage was done by someone else entirely. And then she'll dive for the diaper bag and bring me the package of baby wipes. "Wipes! Clean, clean." As I wipe the book clean, Alex sums up the moral of the story: "No, no crayon."
(This is where I'm glad to have a good understanding of developmental psychology. I can really see how some parents arrive at the conclusion that their young toddler is "deliberately being bad.")
Slang has struck. She's taken to saying goodbye with a breezy "See you!", and expressing approval with "O! Kay!" Sometimes she'll clap and say "Yay!" for no apparent reason - just happy, I guess. After months of swallowing the ends of her words, she has discovered terminal consonants with a vengeance. The tasty orange vegetables formerly known as "car'" are now "carrotttttssssss." Her name is especially good for this: "Alekkkkkssssss."
She's freakishly interested in the alphabet. Obsessed with it, actually. Riding in the car or stroller, she calls out the names of letters she sees on signs. Several times a day, she brings me a pen and paper and asks, "A? B?" If I agree to write letters, she dictates joyfully: "A B B Y Z X D K J J J again more J." She points out letters on the covers of our books; once she even looked at my computer while I was writing an e-mail and exclaimed "X!" - pointing at the "delete" button. All told, she recognizes about two-thirds of the upper-case letters when she sees them out of order. She struggles a bit with orientation - she just doesn't see why I think N and Z are different letters, or why a lower-case d isn't a P.
She can more or less count from one to ten, although she doesn't yet understand that there should be a one-to-one correspondence between numbers and objects counted. If there are only five of something, and you like the number six, why can't you just call the last item five and six? Also, if you can count faster than you can climb stairs, why shouldn't you be on the number seven by the time you hit the third step?
Yesterday, on our way to the library, Alex stopped at a mailbox. "Drum," she said, and pounded the flats of her hands against the front panel. Then she came back and did a circuit around me, patting my pockets. "Keys?" I handed her my key ring, curious about what she had in mind, and then watched in awe as she spent the next five minutes patiently trying to fit one key after another into the lock on the front of the mailbox. (She had the best luck with my cashbox key from work, which actually went in. Didn't turn, though.)
She still loves to go out. "Outside?" she'll whine, pulling at the door. "A walk, a walk!" Once outside, she goes down the block from one beloved ritual activity to the next: touching the flowers in the treewell and naming their colors, checking to see if the neighbors' dogs are at their gate, touching a gryphon-headed bootscraper and misidentifying it as a dog, reaching as far as possible up a lamppost ("Tall!"), slapping her hands against newel posts, sitting briefly on stoops ("Seat!"), picking up leaves, climbing slanted cellar doors and being swung down. She can walk five or six blocks without the stroller. She likes to announce what she's doing: "Run run run!" as she pelts down the sidewalk. Sometimes she'll stop in the middle of the sidewalk to turn circles: "Row, a row, pock', all down!" (That would be "Ring around the rosy.") And, always, she stops what she's doing to greet passersby with a "Hi!" and a dazzling smile.
"Dance!" she says, and suddenly she's stamping her feet wild and fast, waving her arms. Then the dance is over and we go on with whatever we were just doing.
She is taller, stronger, more agile. She climbs on the furniture - nothing makes her happier than sitting at the table in a grownup chair. She inverts herself into a tripod as if she's about to do a somersault. She runs up and down ramps. She scoots a riding toy along with her feet. She loves to sit on things and climb into things. Laundry baskets are a constant temptation, and source of head bumps. She loves to rough-house. I swing her through the air, tackle her, turn her upside down. She pushes against my chest when I'm sitting on the floor, and I "fall" over backward, hauling her with me.
Or else she brings me a book and says, "A lap?" And we cuddle together with my cheek nestled on her soft, fine, sweet-smelling baby hair, and read. "Ga-gain? Ga-gain?" Of course, again. Because I don't want it to end either.
Part of knowing the rules and routines is not wanting to be excepted from them. She wants to have her food on a plate, and she wants to eat it with a fork. Her plastic cup of milk is okay, but she'd prefer to drink from one of our big heavy drinking glasses. She'd like to carry her own PJs up the stairs at night, even if she does need to hold on to me with one hand and the bannister with the other.
On our walks, she stops at the corners, announces "street!" and holds up her arms to be carried across. (No, we don't count on that.) She waits until we reach the far curb before trying to slide out of our arms ("A walk, a walk.") But internalizing the rules doesn't necessarily imply following them. She'll run her finger along a book cover in a scribbling motion and say, "No, no crayon." "That's right," I'll say. "No crayons on books." "No crayon," Alex will agree, picking up a crayon and bringing it to the book jacket. If I don't notice in time, later on she'll bring the book to me, pointing at the crayon marks and saying, "No, no. No crayon," in a sorrowful, disapproving tone - as if the damage was done by someone else entirely. And then she'll dive for the diaper bag and bring me the package of baby wipes. "Wipes! Clean, clean." As I wipe the book clean, Alex sums up the moral of the story: "No, no crayon."
(This is where I'm glad to have a good understanding of developmental psychology. I can really see how some parents arrive at the conclusion that their young toddler is "deliberately being bad.")
Slang has struck. She's taken to saying goodbye with a breezy "See you!", and expressing approval with "O! Kay!" Sometimes she'll clap and say "Yay!" for no apparent reason - just happy, I guess. After months of swallowing the ends of her words, she has discovered terminal consonants with a vengeance. The tasty orange vegetables formerly known as "car'" are now "carrotttttssssss." Her name is especially good for this: "Alekkkkkssssss."
She's freakishly interested in the alphabet. Obsessed with it, actually. Riding in the car or stroller, she calls out the names of letters she sees on signs. Several times a day, she brings me a pen and paper and asks, "A? B?" If I agree to write letters, she dictates joyfully: "A B B Y Z X D K J J J again more J." She points out letters on the covers of our books; once she even looked at my computer while I was writing an e-mail and exclaimed "X!" - pointing at the "delete" button. All told, she recognizes about two-thirds of the upper-case letters when she sees them out of order. She struggles a bit with orientation - she just doesn't see why I think N and Z are different letters, or why a lower-case d isn't a P.
She can more or less count from one to ten, although she doesn't yet understand that there should be a one-to-one correspondence between numbers and objects counted. If there are only five of something, and you like the number six, why can't you just call the last item five and six? Also, if you can count faster than you can climb stairs, why shouldn't you be on the number seven by the time you hit the third step?
Yesterday, on our way to the library, Alex stopped at a mailbox. "Drum," she said, and pounded the flats of her hands against the front panel. Then she came back and did a circuit around me, patting my pockets. "Keys?" I handed her my key ring, curious about what she had in mind, and then watched in awe as she spent the next five minutes patiently trying to fit one key after another into the lock on the front of the mailbox. (She had the best luck with my cashbox key from work, which actually went in. Didn't turn, though.)
She still loves to go out. "Outside?" she'll whine, pulling at the door. "A walk, a walk!" Once outside, she goes down the block from one beloved ritual activity to the next: touching the flowers in the treewell and naming their colors, checking to see if the neighbors' dogs are at their gate, touching a gryphon-headed bootscraper and misidentifying it as a dog, reaching as far as possible up a lamppost ("Tall!"), slapping her hands against newel posts, sitting briefly on stoops ("Seat!"), picking up leaves, climbing slanted cellar doors and being swung down. She can walk five or six blocks without the stroller. She likes to announce what she's doing: "Run run run!" as she pelts down the sidewalk. Sometimes she'll stop in the middle of the sidewalk to turn circles: "Row, a row, pock', all down!" (That would be "Ring around the rosy.") And, always, she stops what she's doing to greet passersby with a "Hi!" and a dazzling smile.
"Dance!" she says, and suddenly she's stamping her feet wild and fast, waving her arms. Then the dance is over and we go on with whatever we were just doing.
She is taller, stronger, more agile. She climbs on the furniture - nothing makes her happier than sitting at the table in a grownup chair. She inverts herself into a tripod as if she's about to do a somersault. She runs up and down ramps. She scoots a riding toy along with her feet. She loves to sit on things and climb into things. Laundry baskets are a constant temptation, and source of head bumps. She loves to rough-house. I swing her through the air, tackle her, turn her upside down. She pushes against my chest when I'm sitting on the floor, and I "fall" over backward, hauling her with me.
Or else she brings me a book and says, "A lap?" And we cuddle together with my cheek nestled on her soft, fine, sweet-smelling baby hair, and read. "Ga-gain? Ga-gain?" Of course, again. Because I don't want it to end either.
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no subject
Date: 2006-09-15 12:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-15 12:30 am (UTC)That alphabet thing is really impressive, BTW. I was in the grocery store the other day and the woman ahead of me was amazed that Liam could sing the ABC song at 2.5. I hear about kids like Alex and feel like he's already behind!
Developmental Phych?
Date: 2006-09-15 12:37 am (UTC)Anyway, she sounds cute - adorable and absoloutely wonderful. But given who her parents are, I figured on it.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-15 12:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-15 12:47 am (UTC)Re: Developmental Phych?
Date: 2006-09-15 12:56 am (UTC)They even tell you how you can replicate classic developmental psychology experiments at home, which is really fun.
Maybe we'll see you Sunday?
no subject
Date: 2006-09-15 12:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-15 01:04 am (UTC)Thanks!
Date: 2006-09-15 01:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-15 01:17 am (UTC)How's she doing on the weight gain? Getting any heavier?
no subject
Date: 2006-09-15 01:17 am (UTC)Re: Developmental Phych?
Date: 2006-09-15 01:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-15 02:19 am (UTC)she just doesn't see why I think N and Z are different letters, or why a lower-case d isn't a P.
Um. I wish you hadn't said that. Now I'm all confused.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-15 03:21 am (UTC)We don't have a scale, so we don't know for sure. But she doesn't seem quite as bony as she did. I think she's probably gaining a bit.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-15 03:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-15 03:26 am (UTC)Re: Developmental Phych?
Date: 2006-09-15 03:28 am (UTC)We have no "enriched" program.
Several of our kids are usually reading on some level, one or two a year fairly fluently, when they enter kindergarten, yet kindergarten teachers have told us that they'd prefer kids come in happy and socialized, if they have the option, rather than reading, and that kids from our school tend to do well in kindergarten.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-15 03:29 am (UTC)Re: Developmental Phych?
Date: 2006-09-15 03:41 am (UTC)Re: Developmental Phych?
Date: 2006-09-15 03:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-15 05:17 am (UTC)On the other hand, they make me ache with missing my niece (3 1/2) and nephew (nearly 1), who just moved from a quick train-ride away to Minneapolis. Which requires plane tickets.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-15 05:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-15 06:46 am (UTC)I love your Alex updates.
Re: Developmental Phych?
Date: 2006-09-15 06:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-15 09:58 am (UTC)But Alex is so cute I might DIE.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-15 10:45 am (UTC)I'm forwarding the link to a friend who is not on LJ and has a 15-month old girl, not talking yet (she's expected to be late because she's being brought up bilingual) but otherwise shaping up to be as delightful as yours...
I love growing children.
Please keep us updated! :-)
Re: Developmental Phych?
Date: 2006-09-15 11:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-15 11:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-15 12:20 pm (UTC)I, like you, am just loving toddlerhood. I do find it a bit overwhelming sometimes, but that is completely negated by the wonderful moments. Having a newborn as well, though, has reminded me of how easy babies are compared to toddlers. They get more challenging as they get older, but the returns are so much more! Imagine what they'll be like when they're grade-school aged.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-15 01:27 pm (UTC)My youngest nephew was taught finger-spelling in Kindergarten, and was able to sign his name very clearly when he was about the same age.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-15 01:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-15 02:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-15 02:35 pm (UTC)I'm not at all into children, but I love these, and one of the things I love about them is how loving you are towards her - you're always positive about events.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-15 04:40 pm (UTC)Re: Developmental Phych?
Date: 2006-09-16 05:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-20 06:30 am (UTC)I do have one question, though. You wrote, "(This is where I'm glad to have a good understanding of developmental psychology. I can really see how some parents arrive at the conclusion that their young toddler is "deliberately being bad.")"
And, well, yeah, I would arrive at that conclusion myself, not knowing much about developmental psych. So, if you have time and feel like it, could you explain in small words why that isn't deliberate bad behavior? Dale said something about "intellectual understanding" vs. "impulse control", which I kind of get, but it still feels kind of fuzzy to me.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-20 12:31 pm (UTC)Dale basically has the right of it. Young toddlers aren't very good at inhibiting their behavior. If they see something they want to do - and when Alex sees a likely surface, she wants to color it with crayons - they don't really have the skills yet to control that want and do something else instead. Desire = action, without a middle "analysis" step.
To control an impulse towards a forbidden activity, (1) you have to recognize that the impulse should be controlled. (2) You need to have enough motor control to stop yourself from doing what you had previously decided to do. (3) You need to have the emotional skills to manage your feelings of disappointment and/or the cognitive skills to pick a better choice. When she says "no crayons books," Alex is showing that she's figured out (1). But it's not deliberate disobedience unless she has skills (2) and (3) - which she doesn't - and is just choosing not to exercise them.
The other thing that's going on here is that toddlers are extremely curious and have a highly experimental approach to the world. At the same time, they're not very good at predicting the likely outcomes of a chain of behaviors. Alex knows the rule "no crayons on books," but at this age she probably can't picture in her head what the outcome of the whole sequence will be. She tries it out to see what happens.
Discipline at this age (probably at any age, actually) needs to really be discipline - which is a word that means "teaching" - rather than punishment. When Alex does something she shouldn't, we help guide her through impulse control steps (1) through (3): tell her not to do it, physically help her stop, if necessary (by removing the object in question or stopping her hand or picking her up), and help her find something else to do instead. We're trying to provide a sort of scaffold for good behavior, supporting her through it until she can do it on her own. Punishing her for this kind of thing would make about as much sense as punishing a younger child for stumbling while learning to walk.
We also try to explain about consequences, cause and effect, etc., but that falls under our general responsibility to teach Alex about the world. It's not something I expect her to actually be able to absorb and follow through on, at this age.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-20 12:37 pm (UTC)Just to elaborate on this: right now crayons are so fascinating that they take up much of her day, and she's really working to understand the role of crayons in the world. So when we're out for a walk and she sees something spray-painted on a wall, she points it out and says "crayon." She likes to talk about what surfaces should not be crayoned, and get lots of different examples. She's curious about whether various marks are crayon violations - for example, dark marks on the wood floor from moving furniture.
The other day, she traced along one of my scars with her finger. "No crayon Mama," she told me, which translates from toddlerese as "don't write on Mama with crayons." "That's right," I told her, "no crayons on Mama. But that's not a crayon. That's just part of Mama."
no subject
Date: 2006-09-22 05:11 am (UTC)I miss having a baby, and I miss having a toddler, and I really really miss having a five-year-old, but I have to tell you, 10 and 14 are awesome.