duck pee

This morning the dishwasher was running and made a ka-thunk noise, as dishwashers are wont to do. Gavin stopped what he was doing, turned and pointed at it and said, "Uh-oh!" (Bet you didn't see that exclamation coming, didja?) So I said that yes, the dishwasher made a noise and it was ok. Then I said, "Ka-thunk!" And Gavin burst into a fit of belly laughing in a way I haven't seen in months. So I said it again. And again. So funny, him laughing. Soon I was laughing too, which I needed. And after not too long, it was a game. He pointed at the dishwasher and said "Dat!" and I said "Ka-Thunk!" Laughter. Ahh. Bliss.

I told you about Gavin's interest in the potty, but have I mentioned his blossoming imagination? Or that he is beginning to know his colors? Or that he is, in a primitive way, counting?

We've been including color in our play for some time now, just simple things like pointing out which key matches which door on his Gazoobo or pointing out the different colors of similar objects. Until the past couple of days, he never paid much attention to our questions when we'd ask him to find the red block or the key to match the blue door. But lately he's been actually attempting to find the right color. He'll look over the scattering of blocks and pick one up. Or he'll look over each key on the keyring and pick on. Sometimes he gets it right, other times not. But he's trying, as if he's starting to understand the concept at least.

His "counting" is, as I said, primitive at best. But he understands that we point to things that are the same to count them. Once I initiate a counting game ( Saying Gavin has one, two hands; There are one, two, three balls; etc, and pointing to each item as I count it) he continues it by pointing at other things. This afternoon he pointed at one of his feet, then the other. Then at my feet one after the other.

And imagination. It's tricky to know for sure if he is really truly imagining and inventing play or just mimicking what we've done with him before. But I really think he's at least starting to be creative, because he's doing things that we have never done with him. The first time was last week. We'll periodically make his stuffed animals walk and talk to him. He'd then make that animal do what we made it do, everytime he played with it. OK, that's just mimicry. But last week he picked up a stuffed dog that to my knowledge we'd never played with like that. He pointed to its mouth, which has a big red tongue hanging out of it. Then he picked up another toy and put it to the dog's mouth and made eating noises ("numnum" or somthing). We've never fed his animals before -- at least, I haven't.

Today he found a stuffed duck that has been hidden in the bottom of a toy basket for months. He really latched onto the duck. We played with it for awhile, with me making it talk to him, him hugging and kissing it, and so on. He was holding the duck and making it walk around, then he stood up and said "beeeee!" and ran for the bathroom. I followed, unsure what he meant. He went into the bathroom when I opened the door, straight over the toilet and pointed at it. He wasn't pointing at his own diaper, which was odd. So I unlocked the toilet lid and watched as he held the duck up over the toilet and said "beee" again, then flushed (and I grabbed onto the duck just to make sure he didn't accidentally go for a swim). He did the same thing later in the day when we returned to his room and he saw the duck again, with absolutely no prompting from me. I have to wonder what in the world made him think that duck had to pee!

Posted by allison at October 27, 2005 11:06 PM