Sometime over the last month, Isaac has begun to play properly with most of his toys. I guess I should modify that with quotes -- play "properly" -- since who am I to tell a baby what type of playing is correct? However, I mean that he wheels his toy truck, clangs his cymbals together, shakes his tambourine, and rakes the carpet with his toy garden tools.
I guess I first noticed it with the bath toys -- he has some bobbing spheres that emit bubbles when they're held under water, and then sprinkle the water out through perforations when they're held up in the air. For many months he liked to watch me manipulate them, but all he wanted to do himself was chew on them. But when he was ten months old he began to copy me, and now he's quite expert with them. He'll even hold one over his head to give himself a little shower.
I remember what a thrill it was -- for both of us! -- when he could first hold an object purposefully in his hand. I have a photo of him at three months old or so, triumphantly holding aloft a soft rattle shaped like a chick. Now he looks like a real little boy as he sits hunched over his toy bus, wheeling it back and forth. It's too soon for imaginative play, though, isn't it? Do you think he can be pretending it's a real bus?
But I know he's still a baby because the order of play with a new object is as follows: chew it, bang it against something, shake it, toss it, and then perhaps he'll move on to so-called proper play. Perhaps. That chewing still holds a lot of appeal ...
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