Isaac stuff
Sep. 19th, 2005 03:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mamajoanIsaac is definitely two. Lately he has discovered that you can negate something by putting the word "not" into a sentence. He is big on denying things that he knows are true, or that he doesn't want to be true. The most perplexing one is that he has started insisting that he and I are not people. He says, "Isaac not a person, mama not a person." If I say yes, we are people, he gets extremely upset. Of course I say "well, if we're not people, what are we?" but that question is a bit too advanced for him. ;)
He is also getting really into that thing where he will do something immediately after I tell him not to, just to see what happens. I am working very hard on remaining calm when I scold him for it.
A few months back I posted that I was tearing my hair out over Isaac's constant efforts to pull the cat's tail. Of course, it was a phase and it stopped on its own a few days after I posted about it here. But now he has rediscovered tormenting the cat. He doesn't do it to be mean -- he's just trying to play, or whatever. He follows Bini around the apartment and tries to push Bini in the direction that he, Isaac, wants him, Bini, to go. Needless to say Bini doesn't care for this. Isaac got scratched three times this weekend. He also will sit on the couch with me and say "Bini kitty come on the couch" and so I call Bini up and we pet him, and then Isaac pushes him off the couch. I have lectured him very sternly about this, and now I won't call Bini up onto the couch on Isaac's whim, but he's having trouble getting it. I guess it's hard to understand that Bini, although not a person, is still a being with rights and feelings. He's also just interested in everything Bini does. When Bini eats, when he lies around on the floor, when he sits on the windowsill, Isaac wants to know what he's doing and to do it with him. When Bini goes in Isaac's room he says "Bini kitty get out of Isaac's room!" or when he goes on my bed "Bini kitty off mama's bed!" and I say "no, he's allowed to be there." I think that, again, is about Isaac figuring out how much control he really has over his environment, and what the "rules" are.
Isaac is also starting to get into representative play -- I'm not sure if that's the right term -- for example, one day out of the blue he told me that "Elmo want some juice." He has a toy car with a little Elmo figure driving it. I had to get Isaac's cup with the straw attached and hold it to Elmo's mouth and let Elmo "drink." Now he wants to give Elmo a drink ALL the time. The other day at my mom's house Isaac started showing some interest in baby dolls (which mind you have been sitting out with his other toys for ages, but he has always ignored them). My mom pulled out an old toy baby carriage of mine, and Isaac pushed it all around the apartment. (I got some pictures of this which I shall post probably tomorrow.) Then he fed the baby some goldfish crackers, and later when we were looking at old pictures, he took them over to show the baby.
It's interesting to see Isaac start to do these different kinds of play. And it really highlights how idiotic gender roles are at this age. My mom was going nuts over the baby stuff because just the previous day she had had a long conversation with a friend about Isaac's love of trucks and buses and all things vehicular. My mom's friend was trying to engage mom in a discussion about whether Isaac's "boyness" was nature or nurture -- and my mom was trying to refute the very notion that these ARE boy traits as opposed to just Isaac traits. After all, says my mom, my brother was never as interested in vehicles -- he liked them, yes, but he sure didn't know at the age of two the difference between a flatbed and a cement mixer! So my mom was arguing, and I believe too, that it's got nothing to do with gender and everything to do with the fact that Isaac is just a child who likes trucks. you know?
He is also getting really into that thing where he will do something immediately after I tell him not to, just to see what happens. I am working very hard on remaining calm when I scold him for it.
A few months back I posted that I was tearing my hair out over Isaac's constant efforts to pull the cat's tail. Of course, it was a phase and it stopped on its own a few days after I posted about it here. But now he has rediscovered tormenting the cat. He doesn't do it to be mean -- he's just trying to play, or whatever. He follows Bini around the apartment and tries to push Bini in the direction that he, Isaac, wants him, Bini, to go. Needless to say Bini doesn't care for this. Isaac got scratched three times this weekend. He also will sit on the couch with me and say "Bini kitty come on the couch" and so I call Bini up and we pet him, and then Isaac pushes him off the couch. I have lectured him very sternly about this, and now I won't call Bini up onto the couch on Isaac's whim, but he's having trouble getting it. I guess it's hard to understand that Bini, although not a person, is still a being with rights and feelings. He's also just interested in everything Bini does. When Bini eats, when he lies around on the floor, when he sits on the windowsill, Isaac wants to know what he's doing and to do it with him. When Bini goes in Isaac's room he says "Bini kitty get out of Isaac's room!" or when he goes on my bed "Bini kitty off mama's bed!" and I say "no, he's allowed to be there." I think that, again, is about Isaac figuring out how much control he really has over his environment, and what the "rules" are.
Isaac is also starting to get into representative play -- I'm not sure if that's the right term -- for example, one day out of the blue he told me that "Elmo want some juice." He has a toy car with a little Elmo figure driving it. I had to get Isaac's cup with the straw attached and hold it to Elmo's mouth and let Elmo "drink." Now he wants to give Elmo a drink ALL the time. The other day at my mom's house Isaac started showing some interest in baby dolls (which mind you have been sitting out with his other toys for ages, but he has always ignored them). My mom pulled out an old toy baby carriage of mine, and Isaac pushed it all around the apartment. (I got some pictures of this which I shall post probably tomorrow.) Then he fed the baby some goldfish crackers, and later when we were looking at old pictures, he took them over to show the baby.
It's interesting to see Isaac start to do these different kinds of play. And it really highlights how idiotic gender roles are at this age. My mom was going nuts over the baby stuff because just the previous day she had had a long conversation with a friend about Isaac's love of trucks and buses and all things vehicular. My mom's friend was trying to engage mom in a discussion about whether Isaac's "boyness" was nature or nurture -- and my mom was trying to refute the very notion that these ARE boy traits as opposed to just Isaac traits. After all, says my mom, my brother was never as interested in vehicles -- he liked them, yes, but he sure didn't know at the age of two the difference between a flatbed and a cement mixer! So my mom was arguing, and I believe too, that it's got nothing to do with gender and everything to do with the fact that Isaac is just a child who likes trucks. you know?
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Date: 2005-09-20 08:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-20 08:30 am (UTC)