An Old Observation of Baby Bree

The posts on Bree’s basket and drawer reminded me of her love of playing with the coin pouch/key ring with keys. The keys (attached to the ring) are revealed once the flaps hiding them are unzipped. She used to like shaking them to make lots of noise. When she began to crawl very well and stand up steadily with support, Bree would go to a cupboard in the family area to try to unlock one of the doors with the keys. She tried and failed again and again because those locks use different style keys. It seemed like fun to her. On the front side of the pouch is a pocket with a snap button closure. Bree would sit for long periods of time trying to unbutton it. Once she managed to learn how to unbutton the pocket, she went through a frustrating stage of not able to do up the snap again. At the top of the pouch is another zipper for the coin compartment. She used to request that I open it for her after some time of fiddling with the zipper. It was the same with the keys. She would ‘ask’ me to stuff the keys back behind the flaps and then zip them up. Again, she would sit for long periods of time trying to figure out how to zip and unzip the zippers. Her success in zipping and unzipping depended very much on the position of the hand that was holding the pouch as her other hand moved the slider. It depended also on how smoothly she moved the slider. I allowed her plenty of uninterrupted time to try different ways. I only helped when requested and even then, I would describe in a simple way what I was doing, hoping to make my ‘instructions’ clearer. Today Bree is capable of zipping and unzipping the flaps most of the time, especially if the keys are left dangling outside without tucking them behind the flaps. She is still struggling with the zipper for the coin compartment. Instead of playing with it on the floor like she used to, she now collects it from her drawer to keep it in her handbag and takes them along with her when she rides her tricycle. This coin pouch/key ring is one example supporting the belief that children don’t always need fancy battery operated toys with lots of buttons to push to make silly noises.

One other thing that I observed my young charges (e.g. 6-18 month olds) doing when they were offered a variety of things (like the contents of a Discovery Basket) to explore, was how they were easily influenced by another person’s actions or choice. Baby may select an attractive object from the basket but his/her attention will turn to what his/her carer picks from the basket. As soon as the other person returns the item into the basket, baby is likely to drop the item in his or her hand to pick up the item returned by the other person. Aren’t they just so curious? This is probably why we have often heard bossy pre-school age siblings of such babies telling them, “Don’t copy me!” or “Nanny @#%*-@#%*, he/she is copying me again!” I am pretty sure mums, nannies and other carers of young children all over the world have observed this happening to their little charges. I just find little things like this interesting.