A Lesson Learned

I bought D a bowling game on his birthday which we finally opened a few days ago. It is a cute game with talking pins (Has to be battery operated! I tell ya, these battery manufacturers are making a lot of money off of toys) that have funny faces on them and a ball that is just a right size for toddlers.

Off late, this game has become a regular part of our evenings. We spend a good chunk of our time playing it. It is usually D and I who play while Hubby dear tries to control and stop A from interrupting us. He is successful sometimes but mostly unable to keep her away from us. Can’t blame him…she is always on the move!

I can tell the perfectionist D is in the manner he sets up the pins. He painstakingly makes sure that they are all facing in the right direction and since they are also color coded, he ensures that they are being placed in the right slots. He spends at least a few minutes getting ready for the next round while I wait impatiently for him to get done.

Yesterday, he took almost the same amount of time, if not more, to get ready for his turn. He meticulously inspected the set up for a few minutes and when he seemed completely satisfied, he took position to bowl. Just as he was getting ready to swing, A came out of nowhere, with her tiny arms and whatever might she could muster, bulldozed the whole thing down.

As expected, hell broke loose.

D got upset, almost on the verge of tears. He ran towards A and pushed her and said,
“A, stop it, why did you do that? Don’t do it.”
A started crying. She picked up two pins and held on to them and refused to part with them. D tried pulling the pins out of her hand but she didn’t let go of them, so a tug of war ensued between the two.

After a bit of a struggle, we finally managed to get both them apart from one another. D gave up on the game and decided to call it quits. A was smiling ear to ear-maybe she thought she won and now has the game to herself. I thought this would irk D even more but at that point, he couldn’t care less. He started playing his ‘superhero’ game where he pretends to web the bad guys and got totally immersed in it. It really doesn’t take much to change their mind and focus!

Meanwhile, A picked up the pins and tried to arrange them. Since the pins came in six different colors I thought of teaching her basic colors. A great teaching opportunity, right? But it barely lasted for a few minutes. I pointed out the red to her and asked her to repeat it, she did. Then we moved on to the purple, she did that too but then, we got stuck with the yellow and couldn’t move any further. She kinda lost interest. Nothing unusual!

I decided to let her be and started putting something together for dinner. While in the kitchen, I looked over my shoulder to check on A, who was still playing with the pins.

So I thought, “Hmm this could be another great teaching opportunity. Let me see if she got the colors I taught her.”
I said, “A, sweets, can you show me the red pin?
She did and she also called out ‘red’! Woo-hoo, my brainy child!!
“That is my fantastic, sweets…now can you show me the purple?”
She picked up the green one and said ‘purple’
I said, “Baby, that’s not purple, its green. Say green.”
She said, “Bye bye (waving her tiny hand)”
“No, baby, G-R.-E-E-N”
“Mama, apple”
OK, how about blue?
“Paani….”

And she rattled off almost all the words she knows but the colors.

Well, so much for a teaching opportunity. Instead, I think I learned a lesson yesterday. And that is to take it easy-one step at a time!