Today’s world is so much different than when this grandma was a little child. Still some day, you might remember things that your grandma taught you. I hope that your clearest memory isn’t “No”.
This word is so familiar to you that, when it’s said, you shake your head back and forth, pause for a couple of seconds and then proceed with your quest. When I was little, the word “No” was said with a loud voice and followed by a hand slap. Lucky for you, I’m not that kind of grandma.
Right now, you love to push buttons! I didn’t know there were so many buttons in our lives these days. Buttons on the DVR have been guarded by your Pack and Play for so long but, now, you just push that out of your way! The remote control has so many buttons that you’d think it would be impossible to turn the tv on but you do that successfully any time you get your hands on that button toy.
Then there are the buttons on the washer and dryer, the stove front, and the doorbell speaker system, the refrigerator ice machine, and every computer, phone and ipad in the house. Today, I could only take photos from a distance because you wanted to play with the buttons on that as well. This might mean that you may be seeing an over abundance of crying baby photos in the near future. It was when you pushed the ottoman out of the way so you could get to the buttons on the plugged in timer for the lamp that I had to get serious!
Well, what’s a grandma to do?
Divert, divert, divert!
There are plenty of other things in your home that are great to touch, and safe. So we went exploring. Here’s what we found…
You love the feeling of cold windows and you are now tall enough to see out the front windows. There’s a bonus here. You also love to watch the cars go by. “Car” is now counted as one of your regular words.
The carpet is so nice to touch that you actually like just laying on it. Climbing the stairs is the bonus that comes along with that tactile adventure.
The ball pit is a super fun place for you to push things around. Today, though, you realized that you can tip the whole thing over which scared you a little until you saw all the balls spill out and then you just thought that was supremely funny. AND, you loving watching grandma pick them all up and put them back. Apparently, that meant that it was time to tip the house over again.
Time to divert your attention to something else again. Grandma didn’t think it was aa funny as you did.
Ok, so if you love to touch things, push on things, and make a mess, grandma had another plan: controlled tactile stimulation.
As usual, your grandma thought she had two winners here. The play dough even smells wonderful as it is made with Kool-aide (check out Pinterest for the recipe).
Well, you didn’t like either one. In fact, you only barely touched each one with one finger and then wanted to be done with that.
In fact, our whole touching adventure lasted for a grand total of about twenty minutes. There were no buttons, no sound, no vibrating mechanisms on the windows but you had the bonus of cars driving by. The feel of the carpet came with a great climbing adventure. And the ball pit, well, that actually was funny. The play dough and sand, however, came with no real bonuses. It just is whatever you make it out to be. You may be too young yet to see that creativity can be fun. I think we are going to have to practice pushing play dough and sand around a little more each day.
Who knows, some day you might like it as much as pushing buttons.
Days With Grandma 