Learning to Pray

My heart just swelled the first time I heard my daughter say a prayer.  I had been working on it with her, but it still came as a startle when she actually did it.  I keep her with me in the worship service on Sunday, and during the prayer time I whisper a really, really quiet prayer in her ear (while stuffing her mouth with Cheerios or a sippy cup on some of the tougher Sundays).  When the pastor is praying, I repeat the prayer with/for her in her ear.  During times of silent prayer I just make up a prayer in her ear to give her an idea of the general type of focus that the silence is for.  We also say prayers before each meal and before bed.  Well, shortly after we moved here she was fussy during bedtime prayers, and so I asked, do you want to thank God for the ocean?  (we had been at the beach that day).  To my surprise, she folded her hands and whispered, "Thank you for the ocean..."

Social Roles and Happy Work

I think my daughter is at a stage where she is learning, among other things, two really important aspects of living at 22 months of age: (1) social roles, and (2) how to feel and respond to different things when she is unsure. 

With regard to social roles, I've noticed that, for example, if Daddy cuts open the popsicle the first time she has one, she goes back to him to cut the next one open.  If Grandpa helps her with something, she goes back to him when she needs help with that thing.  And, since Mommy always puts her to sleep at night, Mommy is really needed at bedtime.  So that has me thinking, what are the social roles she is learning about herself?  It has been more tempting than ever since we moved to stash her away with toys, music, and activities to distract her when I need to get things done, but what is that teaching her about her role in the family?  I want her to learn that she has a contributing role in the household and then, later, in the world.  And she wants to contribute.  So I'm working on incorporating her, given her current capacities and the activities she finds the most joy in doing, into a real contributing role for our family.  One example of this is that I'm going to let her clear the table after meals.  It takes longer, but she LOVES doing it.  The other night my husband and I were just chatting away after dinner, and all of a sudden we realized that our daughter was taking my husband's plate off the table.  She took it to the counter, and then came back for more - our little munchkin cleared off the entire table.  And she loves wiping things with wet cloths, and so I need to become more mindful again about letting her wipe down the table after meals.  

As for the second point, I've noticed that she looks to me for how to respond in questionable situations.  Like, she sees something on the ground that looks interesting, but is it okay to touch?  So sometimes she points to it and declares, "Eww!!!!" looking to me for a response.  Or else she picks it up, glancing at me to see what I do.  Or with church, when we moved we had to start going to a new church.  The first Sunday, when we arrived at the strange place, she wasn't sure what she thought of being at a new church.  I tried to nurture the part of her that liked the church, though, and now she is happy to go there.  One thing I do not feel like I have done well is nurture within her a sense of joy in work.  I do not model this well - I don't like housework.  I don't do it cheerfully.  I don't do it grumpily, either, and I try to laugh and sing and be happy as we do it, but toddlers are amazingly perceptive, and I'm sure she's noticed that I'm inconsistent with getting things done, that I avoid the laundry, etc.  My parents did a really great job raising me in a lot ways, but this really wasn't one of them.  I want to do better for my child.  So one of the things I'm going to do is start our "school" time that we do in the mornings with a prayer I found in a little book we have of prayers from around the world:

Thank you, God, for this new day, 

For our work and school and play.

Please be with us all day long

In every story, game, and song.

May all the happy things we do

Make you, our Father, happy, too.

Moving

I haven't posted much recently because we are in the process of moving.  Like, today the movers loaded almost all our boxes and furniture on a truck.  It is a 3 day move, though, and so we have 2 days to go... Here are some of the activities we've done with our little one through this hectic process.

Ball down the stairs:

I completely trust my daughter with the stairs, and so I suggested she throw her ball down the stairs and run get it.  Then she did it again.  She loved the game and it was a great way for her to be physically active at a time when I couldn't be outside with her.  We added another ball to the excitement after awhile, and it was double the fun.

Washing walls:

I gave her a cleaning cloth and told her to wipe down the walls.  I was going over the walls at that point, wiping away marks from tiny sticky fingers, and she was eager to help.  Her attention didn't last terribly long with this activity, but it was just enough to get the creative juices flowing in her brain again at a rather testy moment, and she soared away to entertain herself soon afterward.

A! B! C!:

We've been in the car a lot, and when she'd get bored we'd play the A-B-C game.  I'd say A!  Then she'd say B!  We go back and forth through the alphabet.  Sometimes to get her going I'd have to do A! B! C!, but she usually chimed in after awhile.  It was good alphabet practice and it focused her mind on something other than getting out of the car.

Playing in the car's front:

Ironically, as much as she wants out of the car when she has to be in it for a long time, when we're at home she has developed a real desire to play inside the car.  Not so much the car seat, but in the front, where she never gets to be on the road.  She can entertain herself for about 45 minutes nonstop in the car, which was good when we were working on loading it up.  And it was good exploratory for her.  Lots of new things to touch and consider.

I hope to get back on track soon with my postings!  Take care.

Challenge: Eliminate "Good job"

I read a thought-provoking article on the internet the other day.  It is a summary of parenting book by Kohn that argues parents should stop saying "good job" to their children.  I, frankly, disagreed with most of it.  But I did take one really helpful idea from it.  I had never noticed this before, but I say "good job" all the time for just about every positive thing my daughter does.  I decided to try not using that phrase, forcing myself instead to really think about the particularities of each situation and my daughter's perspective on what had happened.  The result was really positive - over the course of the first day of practicing this I became much more in tune with my daughter, because I was paying more attention to the significance of the individual actions.  

Here is an example - My daughter has become an avid door-closer over the past week or so.  I found "good job" about to roll off my tongue the first night of my experiment as she was closing a door, but I stopped myself.  I realized she was being a big girl, doing a little job that she experiences as being important at this stage of her development.  She looked to me to notice - "I closed the door!" she said.  Because she saw herself as a big girl, I treated her like one.  "Thank you," I said sincerely.  She was quite happy with this response.

Another example - We went to the playground, and she finally succeeded in climbing up the slide portion of one of the bigger slides.  I've never helped her with this, because I don't think its a particularly good thing to do, and once she realized she couldn't do it she would give up and climb up the stairs instead.  Well, she finally did it.  A part of me swelled with pride, and "good job" just slipped out.  Then I followed it up with an observation of what she had just accomplished (Kohn suggests this) - "You did it!  You climbed up that really big slide!"  She repeated, "I did it!  I did it!" 

One more - We were playing with her sticker book.  I typically experience this as a rather boring activity from my end.  But this time, instead of saying "good job" every time she put the sticker on the page, I observed where she was putting the stickers - "You put the bear on the grass!," "That bear is swimming in the water!," etc.  My observations got her thinking, and she started putting more thought into where the stickers went on the page, doing some really silly things with the scene.  It turned an otherwise dry activity into fun.

So even if the article is a little over-the-top, I do recommend trying it.  If nothing else, its a challenge to spice up the day! 

Cooking Fun

My little one is really into pouring and putting things into new containers right now.  So today we made chocolate chip cookies.  That is an activity that involves almost nothing but pouring, stirring, and exchanging containers.  She helped me pour everything - flour, sugar, egg, etc.  I would get things ready on the counter (where she can't reach), and then I'd put the bowl on the floor and let her help hold and pour the sugar or whatever into the bowl.  When we needed to soften the butter, we put the cup of butter into the microwave together, and I had her fingers touch the buttons to make it go.  When it was time to stir, I gave her a spoon and she stirred with me.  The best was gradually adding the flour/baking soda/salt mixture (in one bowl) into the sugar mixture in a different bowl.  I put both bowls on the floor next to each other, and she used her table spoon to put little spoon-fulls of flour into the sugar mixture.  She got clever at one point and started putting the sugar mixture back into the flour!  It didn't really make things more difficult, and so I let her play.  The only difficult part was when it came time to pour in the chocolate chips - "I want chocolate!  I want chocolate!"  We had to do a new Signing Time DVD diversion at that point.  Overall, though, she enjoyed herself so much, using those skills she is most excited about right now in such a grown up way!

Cleaning up Potty Accident

My daughter just had a potty accident.  As I was getting a change of clothes for her, she grabbed some sweat pants and took them to the place where she had the accident, saying, "Clean it up. Clean it up."  She then proceeded to clean up the accident with her sweat pants.  I've never suggested she clean up her potty accident mess before - it never even occurred to me.  Now she is trying to put her new clothes on by herself.  This is too precious!  

Hand Fun

These are some of our favorite sing-song rhymes that occupy our hands and work on fine motor skills:

Open, Shut Them: (hands follow the instructions in the rhyme)

Open, shut them; open, shut them.

Give a little clap!

Open, shut them; open, shut them.

Put them in you lap!

Creep them, creep them, slowly creep them

Right up to your cheek!

Cover up your little eyes 

And through your fingers peak!

This is the Church:

This is the church, (fold the hands "church", with fingers linked together pointing down and thumbs facing you)

This is the steeple, (point the pinkies "steeple" straight up)

Open the door, (open the thumb "doors" in front)

And here are the people! (turn hand upside down and wiggle the finger "people")

We do others, too, but I'm drawing a blank.  I'd love to hear what others do!