Lunchtime Democracy

I have a short story from lunch time today.  I don’t usually write blog posts when the children are here but they are all napping so I have a few ‘spare’ minutes.

The scene begins as we come inside after spending the morning playing out in the yard.  There are three children here – two are nearly two years old, the other is three.  Coats and shoes are put away, diapers are changed and hands are washed.  They sit down for lunch.  I am getting the food ready.

The 3 year old asks “What are we having for lunch today?”

I answer “Ham sandwiches and salad with cucumbers and tomatoes”

The 3 year old sighs, leans across the table and whispers to the nearly 2 year old “Do you like spaghetti?”

“Yes!” he replies

The 3 year old repeats the question for the other toddler and gets another affirmative answer.

Then the 3 year old asks the other two “Do you like meatballs?”

Both of them giggle and yell “YES!”

The three year old looks at me and says “WE would like spaghetti and meatballs.”

I reply “I don’t have any spaghetti.  I have ham sandwiches and salad.”

She leans across the table and whispers “Do you like sandwiches?”

“Yes!” he answers

She looks at the other toddler “Do you like sandwiches?”

“Yes.” the answer is muffled as the toddler takes a bite of her sandwich.

I place the plate in front of the three year old.  She looks at her ham sandwich and salad.  She sighs, picks up a sandwich triangle and says “Fine then, I guess I will eat my sandwich.”

:-)

A Lesson in Infant Development

It was 6:40 am and three children – aged 6, 7, and 9 – were in attendance. They were discussing activity options in an effort to find one that they all agreed on.  Much of the discussion centered on competition and power.  These three do not like to play independently but they all want to be the leader in group activities.

They ruled out dinosaurs because they couldn’t agree on who would control the strongest dinosaurs.  They briefly played with cars but there was a disagreement about which vehicle was the fastest.  I tried to explain that it didn’t matter what speed the vehicle was capable of because none of them would be allowed to drive over the speed limit I had set.  They just stared at me and then decided to switch to another activity instead.

No puppet show, no music band, no restaurant, no crafts.  It was beginning to look like they would never agree on one activity and then someone suggested ‘Let’s play Babies’ and there was a unanimous cheer – well, almost unanimous, I cringed and tried to look busy with other work.  If you want to know why ‘Playing Babies’ makes me shudder you can read about it here.

Once the ’parent’ role was assigned they began to negotiate the age of the babies in the game.  When they play this game they consider the power role to be the youngest of the babies – probably because they think that excuses them from more rules and therefore they can be more disruptive.  Sigh.

They decided the babies were both one month old and as the parent was attempting to care for them the babies were crawling around and fighting.  I intervened.

“You can’t do that” I said

“Can’t do what?” they asked

“Crawl, sit, argue, throw things – pretty much anything”

“Why?”

“You said you were only one month old and a one month old baby can’t do any of that stuff”

“What can they do?”

I printed off an infant development chart like the one here.  They read the list for the first month and the ‘babies’ tried to imitate each item. Their favourite was ‘Strong grasp reflex present’ the parent almost couldn’t escape.

The babies were now two months old and were practicing lifting their heads to 45 degrees when lying on stomach.  They began making noises other than crying and their cries became more distinctive.  The parent lamented “I can’t wait until this crying stage is over”.

Through my tears (from laughter) I informed them that it was time to get ready for school.  Playing Babies will have to continue later.  Maybe I don’t find this game so annoying anymore.