"Good job!"

I like to praise Isaac, and I do it readily and often. Isaac has obviously absorbed this message, because not only does he praise himself when he gets something right, but he is even beginning to praise other people.

We were doing puzzles yesterday, and after he put together the school bus puzzle, he said, "Good job Isaac!" Then after I put together the alphabet puzzle, he said, "Good job Mama!" I thanked him for his praise, but pointed out that I've known my ABCs for quite a while now.

Isaac sometimes likes to have his doll Sleepy Man pick out a book for us to read. He holds the doll up to the bookcase and moves its little cloth hand to touch the spine of a book, and then proclaims, "Good job Sleepy Man!" Today Isaac's night-light, Light Bulb Man, picked out three pre-nap books, and you'll be glad to learn that he also did a "good job."

We've had landscapers working in our yard his week, and Isaac is fascinated by them -- their dump truck, their tools, their digging. If too much time passes without our watching them, he asks, "How workers doing?" He likes to pretend he is one of them, and he says, "Isaac pretend worker. Isaac man." (He calls them all "man" since he doesn't know their names.)

This morning we were in the garden looking at our flowers, and one of the workers came past with a wheelbarrow full of concrete. Isaac said, "Good job man!" The man laughed.