Warning: long post but written especially for other moms or preschool teachers to read and give advice 

 

 EB is almost 20 months old, and I am trying to figure out how to structure her day better.  I have found some great resources online, but would love some input from some of you about what you did/are doing with your toddlers.  For those of you who are thinking that EB is just a baby and too young to learn anything, this is my answer to that:

 

 1.              Without guidance, EB wanders around the house and gets into trouble.  She is aimless, and not quite capable of deciding for herself what she wants to do.  She just gets into stuff!

 

2.              She is a little sponge – she repeats everything we say, she copies our actions, and she is learning learning learning!

3.              And, if the first two are not enough, remember that we live in a third world country behind a wall – EB is not exposed to a lot of the things that other children are exposed to, and does not have the interaction with other children or adults that most children have at this age.  I need to be more intentional than the average mom to make sure my child learns things and doesn’t fall behind developmentally, socially, and intellectually.

 I have found some great websites, like my friend Christie who does a Bible Story each week and builds lessons around that, and a preschool homeschool website with lesson plans, printouts, and fun activities.  (This is what we are currently doing, and it is going fairly well, just a bit above EB – maybe in a few months it will be more appropriate.  Plus, the books they recommend for each theme we don’t have, or access to some of the things to see in person, we don’t have the videos to show, the interenet to download videos to show.)  Also, another of my favorite blogs has a great example schedule to keep a toddler on.  (I am not providing links for security, but if you are interested in them, please let me know – I would love to share). 

 

 SO, in conclusion, I need to structure my child’s day and help her to develop (I am not talking long division here – age appropriate activities), and I still have two hours a day of language school, plus studying.  Any ideas?  Links to website that have helped you?  Books I could order to help?   

Yesterday morning after our leisurely breakfast, while Jody washed dishes, I heard a scream from the kitchen and went running - Jody had encountered a very bold, impudent mouse that ran right across her foot and down the stairs into the basement. As DB was gone, I immediately asked our gaurd to come in and search for the mouse to find and kill it. He then laughed and said that he had watched the mouse come inside the house from outside the day before! Some gaurd! He was unenthusiastic about the search (and would not even go inside our bedroom downstairs for cultural reasons). After asking him twice to return to the basement and not come back until he found the mouse, i finally gave up, realizing that he didn’t even cared the slightest about a mouse in my basement.  I called DB and told him about our tragedy and he too laughed.  He was playing snooker (what they call billiards here) with a bunch of business men, who thought it equally hilarious that I was so concerned about a mouse.  I guess in a place where people live in houses made of mud with no glass in their windows and only blankets covering their doorways, mice are not feared or hated as they are in America.  Never the less, DB came home with 2 mouse traps, and his friends from the Snooker Club brought by two more.  Strategically placed in prime mouse loving locations that EB could not get too, these vicious traps sat for less than two hours before our little brave house guest met his fate.  Sorry to my animal loving friends, but I have a deep seated horrification of all rodent like animals that goes back to when I was very young.  I happy to say that the little critter’s last meal was cheese and peanut butter - he probably never at better.

I have never quite experienced community like I did for two days in a village . 10 people rode with our family to a village two hours away to go to a mutual friends wedding. A car that comfortably fits 5 was bursting at the seems with 13 men, women, and children. Of course, once we arrived at the home of the bride’s family, we didn’t see the men again. The were whisked away to the men’s guest room and given tea and goodies while the women and children were escorted to a room for changing. After I put on my makeup, best jewelry, and fancy new sequin covered outfit the women looked at me and laughed - they couldn’t believe I would consider going to a wedding with so little make up on. After two more rounds of makeup I finally gave up - there is no way I could bring myself to put on the turquise shiny eyeshadow they pushed toward me.

After getting ready and seeing the bride’s new home (a building with three rooms and a bathroom - unheard of for a newly married couple - in a large yard with 5 other family members homes) we left for the wedding. 6 hours later when the ear busting music stopped and we went back to the brides new home for another party, my dari was already strained. The next four hours I just went wherever anyone took me - every woman in the family wanted me to drink tea in her guest room, every child in the family wanted to feel my white skin and pinch EB’s cheeks. Then, after dinner and several long, very personal conversations with different women, I was shuffled off to another room to sleep.  Somehow, this family understood that Db and I could not stay up all night dancing with everyone else (men and women seperate of course) and they gave us our own room as a family. We fell into bed and slept without interuption until 6 in the morning. The minute Db left the room to go find a bathroom, six women and 4 little girls crowded into the room to talk, as if they were standing outside the door waiting for just such an opening. Even after DB came back, they stayed and watched us get ready and tidy our stuff - it was the first time DB had ever seen Afghan women besides our teachers and house helper. This was a true indication of being accepted as family. The rest of the morning, he wasn’t shuffled off seperately, but even sat outside in the yard with the family patriarch to drink tea. We were definitely guests (no one let us cook or clean - food and tea magically appeared before us) but we were family too. DB and I both discussed many deep subjects with our friends, and I believe this excursion will lead to a true deepening of our relationships, and certainly contributed to some shapening of our dari skills!  It was a very difficult few days - lots of new experiences and flexibility required - but totally worth it!

Yesterday I decided to do a little project with EB. I searched through several books for ideas, and settled on a cooking project. I decided on gingerbread cookies with gingerbread man cookie cutters. Let me preface this story by saying that I, the mommy and head chef in this situation have NEVER in my recollection cooked the kind of cookies that you roll out on the counter and use cookie cutters. My mom wasn’t exactly the cookie baking kind of mom. Don’t get me wrong - we always had a lot of fun and sang all of the time and did more than our share of art projects - we were just more a “roll of frozen cookie dough” kind of family.

While EB slept, I got out all of the ingredients and measuring spoons and bowls so that she could sit on the counter and assist in the cooking and I would not have to walk away from her. As soon as she woke up, I made a big deal about how much fun we would have cooking cookies (which prompted a series of requests for “gek gek” - see previous post) and took her to the kitchen and to the counter. I began adding ingredients and letting her stir - we even mixed most of it by crumbling the mixture in our hands, which by the way she loved. We were having a great time and making an innocently fun mess until EB decided to eat the batter by the fistful. At that point I began hurrying through the rest of the preparations to remove the temptation - but there still was the rolling phase (interrupted by a cute little fist) the cookie cutter phase (again, dart of the little fist) then more rolling and cutting (two more fistfuls of dough gone) and on until the last cookie in the pan was a perfect mold of her grubby little hand, which I pried away from the rather large last bite.

Once the cookies were in the oven, EB stood in front of it pointing and emphatically asking for a cookie until she lost interest waiting. I washed dishes, cleaned up the rather large mess, bathed my child, and resolved that my next project would be something that did not tempt my child to consume large uncooked portions of sugary dough.

Of course, had our project been one using clay and paint, would the fistfuls shoved in the mouth still have occurred but with more dire circumstances?

EB has become quite the conversationalist. While she has said and can say many words now, she basically sticks to five or six of them that she says over and over and over. Here is what a typical conversation with her sounds like.
EB - Ow?
Me - you have water. it is right here
EB - Ow?
Me - here is your water
EB - gek gek?
Me - you just had a snack and we are going to eat supper soon - you need to wait
EB - gek gek?
Me - EB, you need to be patient. You can have supper in ten minutes. Go find your stuffed dog.
EB - Ruff Ruff
Me - yes, go find ruff ruff
EB - Ruff Ruff
Me - I don’t know where ruff ruff is, go look in the living room.
EB - Ow?
Me - (ignoring the request for water because she has some) what about your frog? Can you go find your frog?
EB - Ahh Ahhh?
Me - Yes, go find Ahh Ahh.
EB - Ahh Ahh?
Me - Yes, maybe Ahh Ahh is with Ruff Ruff in the living room with Papa. Go find Papa, take your ow with you and maybe he will give you a gek gek.
EB - Papa (pointing to the spot where she last saw Papa)
EB - Ow

Lesson of the day:
Don’t try and reason with an 18 month old. It is frustrating beyond explanation, and her vocabulary just isn’t up to it.

Riding along in the taxi just singing away…

Walking through the mall in Jakarta was painstakingly slow - you can see why from this video.  EB spoke to real people, stuffed animals, mannequins…

Now, we don’t typically just hang out without any clothes on, but EB had had a bath and we were waiting until right before we walked out the door to put on her dress so she didn’t get it dirty.  For some reason, to my silly baby girl, dancing in her diaper is pretty much the funniest thing around…

EB really loves her stuffed animals, and she likes to “walk” them like she has seen people walk real dogs. 

 

EB, as you can see by the video, LOVED the beach!  She was a busy little girl in the sand, and a little fish in the ocean.