Noah Cooper
I know exactly how he feels (epSos.de)
Some people say that the time flies by when you have kids, but I have to disagree. It is two years today since Mr. T was born but sometimes it feels more like 5 than just the two. A lack of sleep, me time and beer will do that to anyone, I reckon.
During the last few days I have been reminiscing about the last couple of years, about the things we have all learned, the good times and the bad times (there have been plenty of both) and how much things have changed. Sometimes these memories have been set off by looking at pictures, or talking about the changes. Occasionally they happen completely out of the blue because of something Mr.T has done.
Yesterday morning he was busy moving two small identical chairs around. His objective was to move them so that Chair A would be in the place that Chair B was in, and Chair B would then be in the place that Chair A originally occupied. I have absolutely no idea why he wanted to so this, but he set about the task with quite some gusto. I had never quite considered the immense logistics involved in such an operation to a two-year old; he had to deal with an uneven floor surface, intermediate positions for both chairs, weight and balance issues when holding the chairs, getting his feet out of the way of the chairs…
Much better this way around
Eventually he managed to get the chairs where he wanted them and he stood back, gave them another look just to check everything was satisfactory and then give himself, or the chairs, a quick round of applause. That was when the memory came bursting in.
He can’t have been much older than 5 or 6 months and we were in our flat changing his nappy. My wife had designed a cool little changing table in the wardrobe that could be hidden with the door when we weren’t using it. it was safe because there was next to no chance of him rolling off, organised (as only my wife can be) with everything near to hand and also had funky little pictures around to keep our bundle of joy occupied.
The pictures didn’t always work, so if I was around I would also try to distract from the job at hand. On this particular occasion I was clapping my hands and saying ‘clap, clap, clap’ to get his attention. He started trying to copy me and then I just stopped clapping but continued to say ‘clap, clap, clap’. He looked at me strangely for a second and then clapped. I loved it, but wasn’t convinced he was reacting to my words so I said ‘clap, clap, clap’ again and he immediately clapped his hands.
I think it was seeing me do the action while saying the words, plus my response to his claps that motivated him to do it again. After that he often clapped when I asked him to, and then that evolved into clapping things he liked until today when he claps himself for a job well done.
So I hope you will join me in giving a big hand to Mr. T on reaching the very so important milestone of 2 years of age.
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