It's so true what our NFP teachers said, that when you have a large family, you don't have to worry about teaching them all. Just teach the first one, and the knowledge will be passed along. We've noticed that with Katie already -- she is very imitative. Whatever she sees big sis doing, she copies (bad as well as good). For example, she LOVES helping us put away groceries. Naturally, because she's Katie, she picks the heaviest, most unwieldy thing to put away, and then fusses when she can't lift the gallon of milk, or the 5-lb. bag of flour, or the half-gallon of apple juice. Silly girl. But she is VERY good at helping Miriam gather the empty plastic bags to put into one. It helps that she's really into cleaning up -- it involves putting things into things, yay!
-----
At the grocery store, Miriam will often request to sit in the cart, "So I can't get into trouble." The basket incident at Staples seems to have made a big impression on her.
-----
Readers of this blog all know what a sensitive, sympathetic girl Miriam is. While at some friends' house a couple weeks ago the kids were all watching a movie, the Barbie Pegasus movie, whatever it's called. A couple minutes into the movie Miriam came running to find me, saying, "Mommy, I don't like that movie, because there was a monster and the little bear was scaaaaaaared! [lower lip trembling]" Awww, my tender-hearted girl! I offered to watch some of the movie with her -- I doubted that a Barbie movie could really be so terrifying. Well, as it turns out, Miriam has the same issue as her mother with tension in movies -- neither of us is good at handling suspense! (That's mainly why I have a love/hate relationship with the Shyamalan movies -- too tense!) The movie was rather mild, but there was a little throw-away character, a baby polar bear, about whom Miriam was incredibly concerned. Whenever the bear disappeared she insisted on knowing where it was, and whether it was okay, or whether it was scared. Notably, in one scene, the hero and heroine were attempting to enter the ice castle of the evil sorceror, who had griffins for watch dogs (that was the scary monster from the beginning). Miriam kept whimpering and asking where the bear was. Once she saw that the bear was enjoying itself by sliding on the ice, she was fine and calmed down. Let alone the fact that the hero was being attacked by a man-eating griffin -- as long as the little bear was happy, everything was good. I guess her sympathy is selective.
I know just what you mean about imitation. Anne Marie imitates me constantly and Lucia will probably follow suit just as Katie is doing. Some of her favorite things to do: unload the dishwasher, help her stuffed animals wipe their noses, put on make-up, and burp her baby-doll.
ReplyDeleteDo you suppose Miriam identifies with the little bear because it is small and vulnerable, since she is, after all, small and vulnerable, too?
ReplyDelete