Learning by Doing

All the books say babies learn by imitation. This is why a mother needs to repeat silly things such as “ a dog goes woof woof!” a hundred times and not stop smiling while she is at it...Jonathan is a living proof that this time the books got it right!

All babies at the age of a year are the proud owners of a toy that is composed of a pole and rings. I spin the rings for Jonathan and he delights in the movement. Then he tries to do it to, imitating me and placing the ring “standing” on the floor, but not quite getting the twist of things (no pun intended) he can't get it to turn. In this case it is clear he is imitating my actions but the result does not follow through. Disappointed he turns to the ever lasting solution of throwing! Thus the ring flies across the room and as it lands it spins nicely, and Jonathan has once again solved a problem!

But why am I writing about this today? Because recently he started imitating me also vocally! I go”hu hu hu hu hu hu” and he joins me with a similar sound. As soon as I discovered that he imitates the sound, I put some sense into it by saying that a monkey goes “hu hu hu”. I also go bblblblblblb with my tongue against my lisps and he clearly sticks out is tongue to create an L sound on his lips to.

Sometimes I imitate him. He uses his hand, tapping it on his mouth and making sounds to create an effect that is close to an Indian call from really old western movies. As soon as I saw that I began imitating him and I joined him in a call across the prairy! As he discovered that my lips can also create the wonderful sound he started tapping my mouth with his hand and all I has to do is say aahhhh.

Jonathan is a very social baby, he likes to join people in their activities. As he now can walk pretty well, he follows me around the house, aways clearly seeking my company. When I sit near him, he can play alone and keep himself busy, knowing I am near by. I do not have to always participate in the game, its the general company/ presence that counts. Also when I eat he comes to share in the activity. The ladies in his kindergarten have also experienced his habit of coming up for pickings. He will usually share their lunch despite the fact that he has already gotten his portion of baby food. The result is that last week, when the ladies of the kindergarten order sushi fro fun, Jonathan has his first taste of Wassabi! Although it was to , he kept eating it. At th same time he kept holding his tongue out of his mouth and blowing, clearly showing his care takers that the food was spicy. They tried to stop giving him the food but he kept demanding his share, and so it continued – the boy was eating, enjoying their company and blowing his mouth cool at the same time. I found this an amusing story, especially since it is so typical of Jonathan not to give up on sharing anything!

In fact he is so stubborn that usually the other kids in the kindergarten give up on toys because they cannot fight Jonathan off. Another day when I came to pick him up from kindergarten, I let another boy play with my mobile phone (no worries, the keys are locked so no expensive calls to far away lands were made...). Jonathan decided he wanted to play with it too and thus the two boys started a wrestling match. The other boy uncharacteristically decided to stay and fight it out for quite a while, so I had the great fun of watching two 1 year olds fight over a mobile phone. After a while the other boy tried a distracting maneuver on Jonathan by tossing the phone away, to try to shake him off, and then making a a run for the electronic devise. The only problem is Jonathan did not even notice this, he just kept wrestling, as if the phone had lost its meaning and now the game was climbing all over the other child.
There was no clear winner that day! When the other boys mother turned up she simply gave her son her mobile and thus the struggle was over.

A visit to the children's station this week showed us that Jonathan is still growing steadily and gaining weight and height despite the repeated tummy viruses he (and mommy) has been getting. Winter is the worst in Israel in terms of children getting sick and viruses simply moving from one kid to the next. Parents need to stay off work with sick children only to catch he virus themselves. The nurse said Jonathan is not getting enough exercise is eating with his hands, but honestly he just does not seam to want to do so lately. He used to try to touch all his foods and now he likes being fed, like a little king. I admit that I do not always give him all the possibilities to mess up his food and that meal times for us are functional and not so much a playing and learning experience.

The truth is I hate the mess and I am probably depriving my kid of some really fun chances to stick his hands into his food. I just can't help it. For the same reason I also serve him food in jars if its grounded (he still eats grounded meat and fruit in addition to more solid versions such as scrambles eggs, potato puree and bananas) He does however like to close and open the jar of fruit when eating from it. So he opens the jar, I spoon out the food and he opens his mouth, taking the portion while simultaneously closing the jar again. Then I ask him to open it, he does and the process is repeated. His motoric abilities (grobe like walking and delicate like pressing a specific button or grabbing with his hands) are improving every day.

You may have noticed that I no longer make an entry to the blog every week. Well I decided that now that Jonathan is one year old and the first definition of the blog has been filled, I will continue to write only when there is something to write about and not on a weekly basis. It is also now the end of 2008, so I wish us all a great new year and to Jonathan a year of growth, adventure and discovery, as well as more learning by doing.