Climbing, Signing, and Perpetual Motion
2/09 RCR has grown and changed so much we are past-due for an update. She is not only running about the house getting into mischief, but has recently acquired the ability to climb! Needless to say she is perfectly pleased with her new accomplishments. I am just thankful she is cautious and not the kind to repeat a mistake like stepping off the edge of a precipice. She has a lot easier time letting Daddy leave the house if then she can stand on a chair and watch him out the window. She has learned to push herself on her push car and can usually get on it herself. She still needs help to get on her rocking horse, Rusty, but at least when it is on the linoleum floor she can rock it herself. This fall RCR discovered how much fun it is to try to imitate every noise we make. When we cough, she coughs. When we laugh, she laughs. Ive attempted to build her phonetic vocabulary by making sounds for her to repeat. She certainly tries but has only managed to copy Mama, Dada, and Baba correctly. She is getting a little better at kkkkkk but other sounds just come out as mamamama. I purchased an unabridged dictionary of American Sign Language and have been learning and using signs. I thought of this rather behind the times since if I had started this at birth, she would already be able to talk back with her hands. She loves to watch me sign though, especially when singing. But the only sign she responds with is me me Since Jesus Loves the Little ones Like Me, Me, Me is the first song I started signing to her. So now whatever song we sing, she at least gets the me me part right. Just in the past week or more she has started humming along with the singing. Communication has improved a lot now that RCR at least understands lots of words that we say, even if she cannot repeat them back or sign them yet. She talks a lot making a sort of squeaking sound that GR says is just like the sound the Swans make when they fly over. She makes a lot of other sounds too that I cannot figure out the phonetics of enough to put down on paper. Much of the time it isnt too hard to figure out what needs or wants she is trying to communicate. But we still have our frustrating moments when neither understands the other. So I am mostly focusing on learning and using the signing in hopes that it will soon solve the communication gaps that remain. Scientists have tried in vain for millennia to create a perpetual motion machine. Now we have oneRCR. She never sits still and never stops moving. Even in her sleep she rolls all around the crib. We have had quite the challenge to teach her to sit still for a few minutes of worship time morning and evening. Generally the reading is interrupted multiple times with Sit, R; and Leave the book alone. I hear some friends writing in their blogs of how their little ones the same age want someone to read books to them all day long. R figures books and magazines are only for the purpose of turning pages and/or chewing on. Look through it quickly and get on with life. Grandma H bemoaned that I should sit and read to her more so she will be more interested in learning to read. I reminded her of what she already well knowssedentary mental education must not precede full physical development.
I know how physically unfit I am and have been all my life because of my sedentary, bookworm, indoor habits. Then compare that to how physically fit my husband is and always has been because of his continual hard work and exercise outdoors. I want my children to have every bit of the advantage of the latter. Since that is what she already is disposed to love, why would I want to weaken the perpetual motion machine???? I dont remember just where all I have read this but I can certainly see the wisdom in it that the physical challenges and stimulation to physical growth and development must not be exceeded by mental stimulation and sedentary challenges in the first 8-10 years of a childs life. How much health problems would be avoided if parents would pay close attention to this principle: The mental development must not be taxed, stressed and pushed in a sedentary setting until your child has developed a sound physical constitution to support it. The mind can never reach its full potential when the body is sickly. So at this young age, mental education should be done on the run or otherwise combined with some type of physical action. Im not saying the mental should be neglected at all but that its stimulation must be balanced with physical stimulation or you will regret it later like I do. Books aside, I can see how overwhelmingly important it is NOT to have a television. That would be too much of a magnet to sitting still and feeding (or should I say STUFFING) the imagination with an overdose of junk food, violence, foolishness, and fictitious images. She plays independently very well. All her activity is the product of her own will and her own imagination. Her mind and body are fully engaged together. When she gets into difficulty, I encourage her to solve her own problems as far as possible. And she does. She is nicely cautious. When she falls from some height, she rarely repeats the mistake. She loves to watch the cows and horses out the window and talk to and pet the puppies. We have horse calendars and pictures all over the house. She begs Daddy multiple times a day to pick her up and show her all the pictures. She talks on and on about the horses and dogs and cows in the photos. Lately she has learned to rock Rusty, her own rocking horse herself. Its great. She will sit and rock on and on and on leaving me free to attend to her brother and many other things. By springtime she will be ready to explore more out of doors. Then it will be hard to keep her in the house at all. But for now, the winter is a bit too cold and she can hardly move in her skidoo suit. So other than riding on the sleigh, she isnt terribly interested in spending much time out there yet. But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall. (Malachi 4:2)
