goplayCAWS!
Last night I went to see a friend who has a two and a half year old and a newborn. She wanted to go out, but her husband wasn’t home yet. The natives were restless. I walked in and A, the older child, said, “gooutwalk.”
“Excuse me, what did you say,” I asked.
My friend said, “he wants to go for a walk.”
After some negotation, we agreed that I’d take him downstairs for a bit. “goplayCAWS!” Apparently, the local pharmacy has toy cars and it’s a good play place, being only a block away. When you live in Manhattan, play places look different than they do in the ‘burbs.
“No carriage…ok, well, A…you need to hold my hand.”
So he clutched my hand like he was drowning and off we went to goplayCAWS. I tried to strike up a conversation with him “…how’s the babysitter doing? Is it fun to have a new brother? I bet you had a fun summer. ”
A gave me one “yes” to my spate of questions and focused on his walking. He’s been getting physical therapy for at least a year and his walking seemed pretty good. We got to the pharmacy and he yelped, “goplayCAWS,” and dragged me directly to the display.
We chose a school bus and a police car and I tried to find him a place that wasn’t too crowded. I’m not comfortable playing in the aisle of stores, but I signed up to play with cars and I didn’t want to go back on my word.
After a minute of playing cars and almost tripping several shoppers, A said, “notthisCAW.”
“You want a different car…well we’ll have to go get it.”
“Ok.”
“No, A…that’s we…YOU and me. Stand up and we’ll go pick a car. But only two at a time. You want the red one…no, A, that’s three cars. You can only have two. A, put a car back…ok, that’s two.”
And back to “our” aisle we’d go. We’d stay for about 20 minutes, playing with two cars, standing up, walking over, and swapping the 2 old cars for 2 new cars. There was much prompting by me about the impossibility of playing with three cars. I could imagine the shoppers sprawled out next to the lipstick display after tripping over three CAWS.
After a bit, I said, “Let’s go see Daddy,” and we went back. Daddy and Mommy were there and wanted to hear about the adventure. They laughed at my rules…”I’m not sure that he knows what “two” means,” said C.
I always come up against this problem. Not know what two means? At 2 and a half? I think I am hyponotized by AJ and super duper smart kids like him. I think all kids should be able to know what 1 through 5 means by 30 months. Is that realistic? Probably not. But I still believe in the number 2 and the letters R-U-L-E-S.
September 6, 2007 at 10:31 am
Yes, it was my sister who was left at the Safeway. Numbers, measurements are difficult concepts to understand. The words for numbers are easily memorized but don’t have a lot of meaning to small children. THey understand more concrete things - things they can touch, eat, etc. Red can count to ten but I’m not sure it means much to her beyond that. If you ask her if she’d like eight grapes or ten, she’ll answer the question differently each time. If you ask if she’d like one grapes or a lot, that she gets.
September 6, 2007 at 1:43 pm
I think even at an older age they always want more than you are willing to give, it doesn’t matter that they now understand the concept of numbers.
We enter the store…I say “You can have TWO Webkins.”….She looks at the display case then mutters, “Why can’t I have THREE Webkins Mom, this one is just sooo cute!”
September 6, 2007 at 2:29 pm
In case Google failed you, it’s from a Lemonheads song. And yes, now I have to admit to liking the Lemonheads. The shame…
Also, LOVED this entry. The younger of my charges is two and the whole scenario is very familiar. He’s the kid who, when given a choice of “this one or this one” screams “I WANT ALL OF THEM!”.
September 6, 2007 at 9:13 pm
I’m a little late. I was going to say more or less what freshhell said. Counting is a different skill from knowing what the numbers mean. AJ did have the hang of that stuff by two, but it was because he was so obsessed with numbers. We invented a lot of counting games. his favorite was one where we had 12 paper plates and a big bag of antique buttons that I got from somewhere forever ago and kept because they were pretty. I wrote the numbers 1 -12, one on each plate and AJ would practice counting out buttons onto each plate. So he associated counting with objects that way. But he could count way before he could do that. Agreeing to stop at two cars, however, just because you say so? Well, that’s just not a two-year-old thing. The optimal words for a two-year-old are “No!” and “More!” and “Mine!”