Baby Jonathan is already 8 months old and must now learn the meaning of the word “No”. As he moves about the house with a tendency ti tear every object from its place (or from itself...especially books) we, his parents, chase him about and forbid him to touch certain items, in a desperate attempt to save our belongings...
And so our son has begun to hear the word No! Repeatedly. The more he learns to move about, the more he needs to understand that he is not allowed to touch everything. My mother claims Jonathan is the first of her grandchildren (she has three) that causes damage in his wake! I find that hard to believe, don\t all babies touch everything within their reach just out of curiosity? Well, Jonathan certainly does. So, as he gets more mobile, so do we! I watch what he does and if he goes towards forbidden territory (or item) such as daddy's comic books or the garbage, I raise my voice and firmly say No! After all we cannot raise everything of some value out of his reach, we simply have too much stuff to do that.
At first he just looked up and laughed at me, clearly not understanding what on earth I wanted and glad to get the attention. However, after a few days it began to become clearer that he does understand something is wrong. After all mommy's tone is not a happy and light singsong when she says No! Its short, loud and firm!
One hot day, Jonathan was crawling away in the living room and going directly towards the small ventilator distributing cooling wind. I guess I can understand why he thought this object was interesting, but on the other hand his fingers could get caught in it...so I have to watch out and not let him touch it. I went closer to him and said a firm No!. He looked at me, this time not laughing, and seriously inspected me (what is wrong with mommy, she isn't smiling now) so I repeated a bot louder, No! He raised his eyebrows and curved his lips to show me he doesn't like this kind of tone, his face showed me he was upset and about to cry, Now I knew! He clearly understood me! He just did not like being forbidden to do as he pleases, nor did he like the negative tone in my voice. I repeated my firm No! A third time. This time Jonathan's lips practically began to quiver, giving me one last chance before he was to start crying...but although I was laughing now, he was just being so adorable with his all to saddened face, I stood firm and repeated one last loudly serious No! And then he began to cry!
Certain that he understood what I wanted I removed him from the ventilator, explaining it is dangerous and could hurt him (you will get Ouch! If you touch that) and then gave him something to play with in a distance. He soon calmed down.
The ladies at the daycare center have told me that they too have to explain to Jonathan that he cannot run the place! Jonathan likes to go to the room of the older children and toss out the contents of the drawers (or so I am told). He particularity likes doing this when its changing time! This is of course disturbing for the ladies that are changing the diapers in that room. And so, the lady in charge of the younger kids n the group has taken to forbid Jonathan to go to the changing room! Only he disobeys this command! (or so I am told). Testing his leverage with his care takers, Jonathan crawls deliberately towards the forbidden room at changing time, until he reaches the door. Once he is there he sits down and then looks back to the room where he should be playing, searching for the care taker. Once he finds her (and she again tells him No! that he may not continue towards the desired changing room) he starts to inch towards the forbidden room on his butt, sitting. This little game continues until the care taker comes to take him away from the door. You have to admit my boy is once smart and cheeky fellow!
We try not to forbid too much, he should have his freedom to roam and explore. We locked away almost all the dangerous things, like detergents and chemicals, and are working on locking up the bar and other breakable things wile leaving plastic boxes and pots accessible, along with books and toys. Cables have been tucked away and electric sockets protected. Expensive items placed on higher shelves. In fact we say that our life style has risen – as in everything is placed higher up, because of Jonathan (in Hebrew this little word play works in a funny double meaning). We cannot make our home full proof but we hope it is safe enough, just as we hope it also will remain interesting for him to roam about! And as for Jonathan, his role is to test his boundaries (and ours) and learn to navigate the world of No!
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