I heard and saw the stirrings of our 22 month old, Luke, in our video baby monitor. Yes, we still use the baby monitor and will probably use it until he leaves the house at the ripe old age of 18. Although maybe by that time there will be monitors that can be used across cities/states for when Luke goes to College… A Mommy can dream, can’t she? Anyhow, I went up to Luke’s room to get him up from his nap/change his diaper, etc. Once up in his room I could hear the pounding of pavement outside of his room and tried to hide my annoyance as I realized it was likely the little boy (~10 years) outside of our house on his skateboard that had woke up Luke. I quickly thought I could use this little boy on the skateboard to my advantage to help get Luke out of his crib. Lately Luke has taken his time getting out of the crib after naps. He wants to run back and forth on the very small mattress for awhile and then he’ll “fall” down and say “oooopppsies” and laughs. He does this over and over again. Then he wants me to go get the “purpal heeeeeaaavvvyyyy” Mother Goose book, the “red eye” Doctor Seuss book, the “aaaaaaahhhhh (faking yawn)” Sleepy Oh So Sleepy book, “pajamma” and “pookie” book. It makes for a very long turnaround time in getting him up for naptime at best 15 minutes and at “worst” 45 minutes. And on this day, it just so happened that I had a chocolate chip banana bread in the oven with only 15 minutes left on it.
I lifted the blinds and exaggerated my excitement when pointing out the window that there was a boy on a skateboard outside. Luke squealed in excitement and yelled “up… see… up… see.” I quickly unzipped his blue cozy sack and lifted him up to see the boy. Luke stood on his window sill (don’t be alarmed/don’t turn me in… It’s not a Michael Jackson thing. The window sill is actually a really big/wide window sill and I stood right behind him with my arms on his waist the whole time). Luke was so excited to look out the window to see the boy on the skateboard. When the little boy would jump up on the skateboard, Luke would clap his hands and say “more.” I noticed the little boy was kind of dressed like Luke. I asked Luke “What color are the little boy’s pants?” Luke answered… “Brown”. I pointed to Luke’s pants and said what color are Luke’s pants… he said “brown….same!” He was excited to realize that he had the same color pants the boy had. Then I pointed out the boys shirt and asked what color was the boy’s shirt… Luke answered, “Blue.” I asked Luke what color his shirt was…”blue… SAME!” He was getting more and more excited as he noticed he was dressed the same as the boy. I asked Luke the color of the boy’s hair, he said “blond.” I asked him what color is Luke’s hair, he said “blond… SAME!”
We stood and watched the boy on the skateboard for a while and then I noticed all of the sudden that Luke kept flinging his head back. I momentarily wondered what he was doing and that it was a little strange. But as I looked down, watching the boy, I noticed the boy on the pavement with his long blond Justin Bieber like locks periodically flinging his hair back out of his face. I realized Luke was copying this boy!! He was trying to do what he was doing. Then Luke started jumping up and down (still don’t worry- hands firmly around waist :) ) and was trying to skateboard like the boy. I was floored… I could not believe that already, and down to the fine details like the flinging back hair, Luke was trying to imitate this little boy! I loved seeing this and realized how much he is learning/watching/observing and at the same time it was a great reminder that he is taking in EVERYTHING right now. So it’s a time to take advantage of this, to help him see/experience a lot of things… but also to remember that I want him to see and experience good and positive things.
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