It All Makes Sense

"Three-year-olds learn primarily through exploring, using all the senses." So says the "Child Development Tracker, "a feature on the PBSparents web page. I may have already suspected that, but I know it for sure after spending twenty-five straight, mostly one-on-one, hours with Beenie the last couple days. With Pa-pa working basically sun-up to sundown at our state fair this week, Beenie was just what I needed to add some fun and excitement to these long days at home by myself.

Just look at that face. Doesn't it just cry out with enthusiasm for exploring? Indeed, the two of us had a glorious time together, with no sense left undeveloped (and some of them working overtime). Here is a rundown of our adventures for the perusal of all you child development specialists:

Certainly we deserve high marks in the tactile category. Those ten little Lego people (most of them wearing helmets--go figure) sitting side by side on the block bench we created took some serious hand-eye coordination, small motor skills, and downright manual dexterity. Add to this a couple hours in the pool both days, and you have a field day for your sensory receptors.

Accompanying us to the pool were three plastic dinosaurs--twin brontosauruses Tex and Rex (who is surprised?) and Max, who, just to complicate things, is a T-Rex. The dinosaurs were quite happy to bob around for our entertainment, until, due to minuscule, invisible holes in their anatomy, they took on water and sank. This required a deep-sea fishing expedition, after which considerable squeezing was required to rid them of excess water, leading naturally to a spirited discussion, complete with demonstration, of the potty habits of prehistoric creatures.

In our drier moments, Beenie and I moved on to develop the senses of taste and smell, which took the form of a huge bowl of popcorn the first day and a box of donuts (with chocolate icing) the next morning. To accompany our popcorn ("Can you get your own bowl, Googie?"), Beenie picked a movie from my sizable collection and we settled with our blankets into a huge recliner big enough for the two of us to sit side by side.

I would not have expected the movie he picked--Baby Mozart--but it offered us thirty minutes of utter nostalgia and serenity with its parade of colorful baby toys against the backdrop of lively, upbeat Mozart music. A VHS videotape we played together every afternoon Beenie stayed with me during his first year, it has not lost its appeal for him despite its intent to target younger children. Given his choice, Beenie asked for "Baby Ein-a-stein," and in that we got our fill of visual and auditory delight--supplemented, of course, by the books we snuggled up together to read at naptime.

Beenie's favorite of my storybooks, at the moment, are  Margaret Wise Brown's Goodnight Moon (which he calls "Fireplace" because of the cover picture), Jane Miller's Farm Alphabet Book, Roger Priddy's Happy Baby Colors, and Mary Murphy's I Like It When . . . ."  His CD of choice for car travel is Barney's House, and with that, we are back to where we started with Barney's close relatives Rex, Tex, and Max the T-Rex.

So, yeah, PBS people, the three-year-old-year is truly sensory in nature for both little boys and their Googies. He might be exploring for the purpose of learning, but I just get to revel in the sensory delights that are mine alone. I get to enjoy the warm snuggles, that cute little voice--and that rare moment when I actually get to have a bite of my own popcorn.

Baby Icarus

If you have read the stories of Greek mythology, you may recall the boy Icarus, who, like his father Daedalus, wishes to fly. After Daedalus, a master inventor, fashions a pair of wings from feathers and wax, he cautions Icarus not to fly too close to the sun lest the sun melt the wax, thereby causing the world's first aeronautical disaster.

The rest is predictable: Icarus, imbued with the folly and carefree abandon of youth, ignores his father's warning, melts his wings, and plummets into the sea.

I thought of this story today when Beenie's mama forwarded me a Facebook message containing a blog post from his daycare website. In it, the daycare provider was describing a clever and creative activity she had executed with her young charges.

In Beenie's case, she colored a picture of a smiling sun shining down on a little robot-like creature composed of geometric shapes and then asked him to tell a story about it. She then transcribed that story in his own words.

If you know me very well, you know that I am fascinated by the way language and creativity develop in young children. With six grandkids ranging in age from one to seven, I have had a heyday of recent opportunities to witness such goings-on. So when I read Beenie's story, I was ecstatic.

To me, Beenie's creation seemed to teem with poetry (for me everything teems with poetry), so I have taken the liberty of breaking it into lines like a poem. Other than that, nothing else has been changed. Here then, for your reading pleasure, is the only slightly rearranged creation of a little boy who will turn three years old in two months:

He flew to the sun.
Happy face.
It's spells robot.
He fell off.
He cried.
He hugged Mom.
He fell off with Olaf.
He fall off that sun.
He fell off the kangaroo.
He fell off the horses.
Yes.
That's the end.

And now, because I simply can't resist, here are some conclusions we can draw (maybe) from the work of this author:

1. Flying to the sun is a universal obsession of mankind regardless of country, culture, or time period.
2. The act of falling is prevalent in the life of a two-year-old. (Actually, Beenie has in the past distinguished between two particular kinds of falling, namely plopping and flopping--he is well versed in both, but that's another blog post.)
3. Irregular verbs like fall and fell are hard to figure out when you are two. (They are also hard when you are in college.)
4. The Disney movie Frozen is imprinted on the subconscious minds of kids in this generation.
5. Kids like robots and animals. (This is kind of Orwellian.)
6. Moms make boo-boos better. (This is so universal that it should be an archetype.)

Now if I wanted to, I could delve further, citing Beenie's use of the demonstrative adjective that in Line 8 as proof that, innately, he suspects there are other solar systems. Or, I could speculate about his awareness of ambiguity as expressed in his last line. 

When he says "That's the end," does he mean the end of the story or the end of the boy who flew to the sun and fell off numerous times? Hmmm. How would Socrates answer that one?

As you can see from my title, I am naming Beenie's little poem "Baby Icarus." Given the similarities of theme between Beenie's plot line and its Greek counterpart--and the fact that I literally watched him cut his teeth on the likes of Baby Einstein and Baby Mozart, that just seems to say it all.

About the Author

Beenie is a smart, rambunctious two-year-old who likes Hot Wheels, his iPad, the movie Frozen, and his four cousins. He has recently learned to sing and use the potty, but not, usually, at the same time. He lives with Mommy, Daddy, his little brother, and his dog Berniece. His Googie thinks he is pretty special.