Artistic Experiments
Artwork by Elijah 30th July 2008. Scanned in colour by The Mumma.
Edit 01/08/08: Apparently it was upside down so I've turned it around the right way. Does it make a difference to the audience?Labels: art and craft
Bathtime woes
A little
backstory - we are on severe water restrictions. Partly due to this, we have chosen to bathe Elijah in a baby bath inside the big bathtub. This has worked very well from a conservation point of view, but not so well from a psychological development point of view. The problem is that any time Elijah must be bathed in something other than his baby bath, he loses the plot to the point of being traumatised. Several of our friends have witnessed this and nobody has had any idea why he was so irrationally fearful.
As Elijah is fast growing too large to sit in the baby bath, I've been looking for ways and means of getting him into the big bath comfortably and happily. Some of the ideas we've used so far have been modelling fun baths in the big bath for him and letting him play with his bath toys whilst they are in the bath and he is standing next to it. We've also got a toy shower head that won't go in the baby bath - it has suction cups and won't really stick to the plastic - and have told Elijah that the shower head toy is only for the big bath. When you press the button, it draws water up from the bath and sprays it out of the shower head. Elijah loves it so much that he gets really upset when it was time to stop playing.
One day last week, Elijah actually asked to have a bath in the big bath, presumably so he could play with the shower head. So I filled the bath, put the shower head on the side of the bath and let him play for a minute, to ensure he knew what he was getting into. He didn't want to go back to his room to get his clothes off, so I took them off him in the bathroom. He was fine until we got down to the singlet, then he realised that he was actually going to be IN the bath and the problems started!
He started to whimper. I put him in the bath anyway - I wasn't going to let all that water go to waste! He stood there, crying. He wouldn't sit down. I got him to play with the shower head and that seemed to calm him down, but any time I tried getting him to sit, he'd cry again. I washed him standing up and tried to get him to tell me what the problem was.
Eventually, I saw how cold he was getting and so I told him that when all his animal bath toys were on the side of the bath (the usual spot) then he could get out of the bath. One of the toys was near his feet, so I coaxed him into picking it up, squeezing the water out and putting it on the side of the bath. With a little more coaxing, he was able to take a couple of steps to get the next two toys.
Unfortunately though, the last three animals were down towards the other end of the bath - the plug end. He would NOT walk down the other end. I managed to get him to hold onto the side of the bath so he could lean and reach one of the toys, but in doing so, the other two were washed right to the end. Try as I might, I couldn't get him to take even one step closer.
I kept talking to him, trying to get some kind of reason for his fear. I had a brainwave. "Elijah, are you scared of the plug hole?" "Scared of the
dwain. Scared of the
pwug." That was our answer.
Now the plug and the drain are almost impossible to see with the bath full, because of the bath oil we put in that clouds the water. Nevertheless, Elijah knew it was there, as he had watched the water from his little bath emptied into the big bath and seen the water swirl and disappear down the drain.
I explained to him that only water (and fluff) could go down the drain, that he couldn't go down the drain and neither could his toys. He still couldn't be convinced to fetch the last two toys.
I was fed up. This had taken far too long - it was at least 45 minutes since I filled the bath - but I couldn't go back on my word. I had said that all toys had to be put back in order for him to get out of the bath and our consistency is what keeps this family working.
I picked him up and placed him back in the bath, about two Elijah-sized steps closer to the toys. I got him to pick them up, squeeze them out and put them on the side of the bath. I took him out of the bath and dried him off (though he was mostly dry anyway, since he'd been standing the entire time) and gave him lots of cuddles and praise for being in the big bath and putting the toys away.
Later, after story time, I let him debrief about the experience. I again reassured him about the drain and the plug. The last thing he said before I left the room to let him fall asleep was, "Don't be scared of
dwain. Don't be scared of
pwug. Won't hurt you."
Since then, I've let him hold the plug any time he's in the bathroom, to try and demystify it a little. He hasn't had a bath in the big bath since, though, because we don't want to push it too soon. We will continue to ask him if he would like to have a bath in the big bath and I suppose that when he is ready he will let us know.
Labels: fears, routines
Fun in the sun
On Wednesday, Mummy had to go Sydney. I used up one of my holiday days to stay home and look after Bugs. It was a glorious Canberra winter's day with nary a cloud in the sky and ,while there was plenty of sun beaming down upon us, it wasn't all that hot.
It was too good a morning to spend indoors and Bugs asked me several times "Go outside? Get-a shoes and go outside?" I relented and we fetched his shoes, whacked them on his feet and ventured out into the backyard.
I had intended to let him play with some tennis balls and a small novelty football while I read a book. It did not take long before the book was put to one side while I watched him tear around the backyard alternating between laughing, whooping and falling over and giggling.
He spied two long stalks of native grass growing side by side. They proved too tempting a target to resist for long and I was soon asked "Daddy, get-a grass. Please". I yanked the stalks out of the ground and handed them to him. He ran off in delight, a stalk clenched in each hand.
As he seemed so happy to run around brandishing his grass, I returned to my book. For about 5 minutes. I had made the mistake of leaving the camera sitting out beside me rather than putting it back inside.
Elijah knows what cameras are for. He did not take long to grasp the concept of looking at recent photos via the LCD screen on the back. He often demands that we show him pictures this way immediately after we have taken a photo. If we are too slow and the photo preview has gone away we have to take another one.
"Daddy show the camera". I needed a photo to show him. In hindsight, I could have just turned the camera on and manually flicked through a few photos for him, but this was much more fun anyway.
All up we spent over an hour out there in the morning sun. I can not think of a better way to have spent that time.
(for family members prone to printing pictures, click through the photos for higher resolution versions - these resized versions look a little jaggy)
Labels: photos, playtime, work/life balance
Yes!
Elijah has finally made the connection between the word "yes" and its function as an affirmative response to a question. The answer to "Do you like cuddles?" used to be "Elijah like cuddles." Now the answer is a succinct, "Yes!"
Labels: intelligence, verbal skills
Educating Tigger
Bugs watches me use the laptop. A lot.
Last Wednesday, I discovered something new about Bugs and his little stuffed companions.
I was home sick with a nasty cold (and not, as others may suggest, suffering from the man flu) that I had picked up from The Boy. I decided to take the opportunity to watch some video tutorials on how to use Photoshop that came with the program when I bought it at the start of the year.
Elijah kept hanging around me on the lounge and was getting impatient that I wasn't paying enough attention. First he started trying to tap the keys. Then Tigger started tapping at the keys. When I (a little grumpily) suggested that he stop doing that, he suddenly thrust Tigger in front of the laptop while I watched and listened to the video. He had obviously decided that if whatever I was watching was
this important, perhaps Tigger should start paying some attention to it too.
Since then, Tigger has often joined me when I'm watching video on the laptop. I guess Tiggers like learning.
Labels: intelligence, monkey business, photos
Pegs are useful things
Elijah has mastered the use of pegs. Of course, this means he's just a little over-enthusiastic about helping us hang clothes (in this case, football jerseys) on the airer inside.
Labels: helping, photos
No cuddles with Daddy
Bugs was in trouble (again) yesterday, this time for throwing a toy catalogue* around because he was frustrated. His punishment for throwing things is he gets sent to his room for a time-out. Sometimes we have to use the old "I'm going to count to three....." trick but he almost always goes when he is told.
Yesterday it didn't go quite to plan. He threw his catalogue and I told him to go to his room using my best "you're in trouble" voice. Instead of turning away and crankily going to his room, Elijah piped up in a trembling voice "Cuddles wif Daddy?".
I tried to be firm but caved and said "One cuddle but then you go straight to your room!" After his cuddle I told him to go to his room and he tried the same routine. The only answer from me was "No cuddles. Go. To. Your. Room." His bottom lip dropped as he turned away and said in a cracking voice "No cuddles wif Daddy."
As my heart melted I noticed Mummy was watching (and sighing at the disgraceful soft touch of a man she married). Elijah was summarily dismissed to his room by the much harder hearted half of the marriage.
Tricksy little creature. He knew exactly what he was doing. Damn near worked, too.
* The toy catalogue seems to serve as a newspaper substitute. He likes to sit on the kitchen floor and flick through the pages while occasionally proclaiming proudly "Elijah reading paper".
Labels: intelligence, tantrums, verbal skills
I'll tell you who sank the boat!
You may recall that Elijah
responded to Who Sank the Boat? with great interest when we first began reading it to him a year ago. He now knows it well enough that he can read it to himself.
If you didn't know any better, you would think he
was reading it, as he is word-perfect. But the tell-tale sign for us is that his eyes don't always focus on the words as he's reciting. What is interesting though, is that he uses the pictures as a visual prompt. If he skips a page, he doesn't say what comes next in the story, he says the words that appear on that page. In fact, more often than not, he now says, "Oops! Skipped a page!" and goes back to where he should be.
No matter how independent he gets, he still loves having it (and other books) read to him.
Labels: intelligence, photos, reading
Curiosity killed the cat
Let's hope it doesn't kill the Bugalugs.
I got out of the shower the other morning to see this:
Elijah was sitting in the middle of the floor, gently taking everything out of the apparently child-proofed cupboards and stacking it all neatly on the floor.
I asked him what he was doing. He looked at me with very innocent eyes and said, "Elijah want standing in the cupboard."
Labels: baby proofing, destructobaby, photos
Musical... pianos?
I had to get some sheet music the other day and the music shop has their sheet music section adjoining their piano section. Elijah decided that it was much more interesting to stay in the piano section than tag along with Mummy in the sheet music section. While I browsed, he kept himself amused and out of trouble, climbing up onto a piano stool, playing the piano, then getting down and choosing another piano to play. I think he tested every piano in the entire shop.
The staff were quite taken with him. The sheet music saleslady asked me when I was planning on starting to teach him to play. I said I hadn't actually planned a start date, but that when he had enough of an attention span to sit at the piano and do what I say, then I'd consider it. For now, he's just happy to experiment.
Labels: monkey business, music, out and about
