Physicalkid

[moominmolly]

Natalie's always been a shockingly physical kid. As a baby, she wanted to be swaddled to sleep much longer than the other kids. She loves snuggles, and still would sleep on top of me like a mattress if I let her. She points and gestures, and tells stories with her body in a way I don't often see. She loves running and climbing and biking and

Comments

[randomdreams]

LEGO bricks, as soon as she's ready. Tablet, too, probably: stuff she can use to express her thoughts in some physical or semi-physical manner.

[harimad]

I'd be shocked if she weren't ready for LEGO already. My experience has been that kids can use LEGO much younger than (many? most?) adults think they can.

[moominmolly]

Yeah, not shockingly, she's been into Legos for a while now.

[dilletante]

yeah, you're totally right, it's just we've already gone there. actually iphone before tablet; she's been demanding the iphone since she was... 2? 3? young enough that we were making jokes about lizards playing those ant-smashing games.

she's actually not the kid in the house who's most in favor of the legos. but she's pretty fond of them.

right there with you

[redheadedmuse]

My evening with Serena just ended with her pointing and gesturing and miming wildly and me saying, "OK, if you're not going to use words I can't help you. I love you, goodnight."

Re: right there with you

[moominmolly]

Sigh. Yes, this is so often me. She's gotta meet me halfway sometimes.

[rednikki]

Do you mind if I point Mike at this? I wasn't this kind of kid but, since he first took apart a washing machine at the age of 4, I suspect he might be.

[rednikki]

He is already saying "Teach safety! Safety is key!" Since she is likely to build things and take them apart, stuff like "Don't take apart the toaster when it is plugged in!" is important

[moominmolly]

Model rockets omg. Also tools are a great idea. She loves helping build things.

Thank you! :)

[randomdreams]

Estes model rockets are great. Get her used to the idea that they're gonna get lost: fly into the sky and disappear forever. They have a whole range, marked by difficulty of building, and ones and twos should be pretty excellent for her.

There are a lot of neat nearly impossible to destroy radio control planes out there, that are basically a huge piece of foamcore board with a propeller on it.

I'm totally onboard with the idea of making sure she knows what is and isn't okay to take apart. See if you can find some old cameras and let her take those apart.

Re: Me.

[moominmolly]

This is wonderful and I would love to pick your brain about it some time. Thank you. I think I don't have specific questions because I'm mostly pretty sure I don't know what the questions should even be. :)

Re: Me.

[dilletante]

this reads a little weird to me because honestly her verbal skills are fantastic. she regularly makes comments about fine points of accent or pronunciation, and she has definitely hit the point where she frequently knows words she learned from reading and hence doesn't know how to pronounce, just how to use correctly.

it's just that she thinks in movement and touch.

we have a long-running back-and-forth about how it's totally fine for her to leap into my arms from random places but only if she gives me a verbal warning first about exactly what she's going to do. i demand it because i want to know which way she's likely to fall and be ready to support her. :) but i suspect that it's extra-hard for her because the actual movement is how she thinks about it, so it's hard for her to verbalize what she wants short of actually doing it.

[ukelele]

I'm all words and numbers and brains in a jar.

V has a lot of words and spends a lot of time understanding the world by monologuing about it, but she also, ever since she could hold a pencil, has understood the world by drawing. And increasingly she's never met a thing she couldn't make a craft project out of.

Um, why have our kids not had a playdate in roughly ever? We should fix that.

[moominmolly]

I was wondering that JUST LAST NIGHT when I saw V was about six feet tall.

[ukelele]

I know, right?!?

We're usually available on weekends. You're the one with the crazy schedule, so you tell us :)