In my last post I made reference to snugglebugs, those charming, delightful little dears who love to climb up into your lap and sit while you read, or watch TV. Or maybe they just want to sit with you and babble. Awww. So sweet. However, not all babies/toddlers are snugglebugs though. Some of us were blessed with flibbertijibbets.
When I was pregnant with my first child I had a lot of plans. Ha ha ha (pardon me while I have a little laugh on myself) hee hee, ho ho ho. Ah me. Let me wipe away the little tears of mirth.
The first of these plans to be implemented was Reading Time. Yes indeed. I was going to start reading to my darling immediately. In fact, I'm sure I read to her before she was born, but I don't really remember doing it. On second thought, maybe I would have felt foolish doing that. No matter. After she was born I was on the job. Ready to read.
She lay peacefully in my lap for, oh, I dunno, maybe six weeks or so. Of course she didn't do a lot of looking at the pictures. Not to say she wasn't bright and alert (oh my, she got brighter and alerter every day), but, you know, I mean, six weeks.
After that, things started going downhill as far as the holding still went. I remember by three months I had moved Reading Time to the floor. That way she could thrash about and I could maybe get through a picture book or two before her baby message of "next thing! time for the next thing! moving along now!" got too loud to ignore.
It was around that same time that my second major plan, No Television For My Child came crashing to rubble. All day long I was presented with "next thing! time for the next thing! moving along now!" (I don't use capitals here because she was, of course, very small). Her devious little baby plan was for me to walk her around all day showing her everything in the world and so, in order to ease her frustration at not being able to get at everything in the world, (and yes, to give myself a break for pity's sake!!!) I put her in front of the TV.
Ahhh, sweet stillness. Oh! How she LOVED the television. LOVED IT. It's not my intention here to expose her as a genius in diapers, but her favorite was Jeopardy. The music sent her into spasms of delight. Our favorite parlor trick at the time was to turn it on, if we had visitors over at just the right hour, and dandle her on a knee. When that theme came on she went into paroxysms of excitement! I wish I had it on video.
I'll leave the story at that for now. If you are trying to imagine what it was like when this child became mobile, even before she was ambulatory, let your imagination run wild. Because that's what it was (wild). But we'll save that story for another day when we will veer back onto the theme of homeschooling.
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