Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Stopping in for a quick post. My old laptop is working hard to get me through the work week, but it's like asking a 90 year old to run a marathon. Unfortunately, I just don't have the patience to wait 5 minutes for my words to pop on the screen after I've typed them.
But I couldn't resist sharing our story time experience this morning at Barnes & Noble. I really shouldn't even call it story time because Niall has no interest in sitting still and watching pages turn, as the nice old man puts all of his effort into doing his best voice for each character. That just simply isn't good or interesting enough.
So we'll call it train time. That's where we stand and play for the entire hour. I've been trying to give Niall his space and just back off while he learns to deal with squabbles and tripping over each other and all that kind of stuff. But I always step in if Niall has more than one train and another kid doesn't have any. Which is exactly what happened today.
All the kids playing around the tracks had a handful of trains, which was fine because there were plenty. But then a little boy came up and noticed that there weren't any left. Since Niall had two, I walked up to Niall and said "Look Niall, this boy doesn't have a train to play with. Which one of your trains would you like to give him?"
I really wasn't sure what to expect because Niall is still a little young to understand this concept. But to my complete surprise and delight, he looked down at his 2 trains, thought about it for a few seconds and then held out one of his trains to give to the boy. I was beaming with pride-- "What an angel!," I thought.
Fast forward 5 minutes. The same situation: a little girl came up and all the trains were taken. Again, I asked Niall to hand one over. He looked up at me and, for a second, I was thinking we were really onto something. Niall gets it-- sharing is fun! Until I saw the eyebrows furrow...
It seems that there is only so much train sharing he can handle in one day, and he had had enough. Instead of handing over one of his trains, he screamed bloody murder and sprinted off with both trains. My angel's halo must have fallen off for a second there ;)
Well, sharing is a process. We'll just take it one day at a time.
Niall loves your votes!
But I couldn't resist sharing our story time experience this morning at Barnes & Noble. I really shouldn't even call it story time because Niall has no interest in sitting still and watching pages turn, as the nice old man puts all of his effort into doing his best voice for each character. That just simply isn't good or interesting enough.
So we'll call it train time. That's where we stand and play for the entire hour. I've been trying to give Niall his space and just back off while he learns to deal with squabbles and tripping over each other and all that kind of stuff. But I always step in if Niall has more than one train and another kid doesn't have any. Which is exactly what happened today.
All the kids playing around the tracks had a handful of trains, which was fine because there were plenty. But then a little boy came up and noticed that there weren't any left. Since Niall had two, I walked up to Niall and said "Look Niall, this boy doesn't have a train to play with. Which one of your trains would you like to give him?"
I really wasn't sure what to expect because Niall is still a little young to understand this concept. But to my complete surprise and delight, he looked down at his 2 trains, thought about it for a few seconds and then held out one of his trains to give to the boy. I was beaming with pride-- "What an angel!," I thought.
Fast forward 5 minutes. The same situation: a little girl came up and all the trains were taken. Again, I asked Niall to hand one over. He looked up at me and, for a second, I was thinking we were really onto something. Niall gets it-- sharing is fun! Until I saw the eyebrows furrow...
It seems that there is only so much train sharing he can handle in one day, and he had had enough. Instead of handing over one of his trains, he screamed bloody murder and sprinted off with both trains. My angel's halo must have fallen off for a second there ;)
Well, sharing is a process. We'll just take it one day at a time.
Niall loves your votes!
How cute :) John isn't so used to having to share... we were playing at the library the other day and I thought his little head might explode when he had to share the cooking utensils!
ReplyDeleteLOL!!! Well, at least it's a start and better than most kids would do (many even way older than him). So cute!
ReplyDeletehaha, silly niall. baby steps my friend... baby steps.
ReplyDeleteHahaha! Well, I think one out of every two times is a definite success. Poor thing, he must have felt such inner turmoil to run off screaming bloody murder!
ReplyDeleteoh man, henry already does this with the kids i nanny. i can't even imagine the screams from an older henry. looks like i better start working on my patience and fake/awkward smile now!
ReplyDelete