Taking the Scenic Route

   Neat Zane acheivements  

Story telling:  one of the many uses of the Memory Game.  I have a feeling that by the time he gets to the point we can actually play the game how it is intended to be played, I will need to buy a new copy of it for all the use it is getting at our house. When I got it, it was evident there was no good way to show him how it was supposed to be played, so instead, I would line up half the cards and then hand him the matching card and let him match them together from the upturned cards.  Then, we progressed to using them like flashcards (sort of).  He would point to a card and then look up to me to ask what the picture was.  We have spent hours doing this.  Then, he has spent time playing with the cards…making the shoe ‘walk’, the airplane ‘fly’ and such.  He stacks, lines up, and makes baricades out of them that he drives his hot wheels cars around.  Now he will have me sit down and then lay out a 3 x 3 grid of cards and procede to tell me a story, with dramatic hand and face gestures and sound effects.  Every once in a while, admist the chatter, if I pay close attention, I will suddenly hear a word I recognize ” Bear!  You are talking about a bear, aren’t you!?!”  and he stops, his eyes light up and he just grins ear to ear, then continues on.  Evey once in a while he will take one of the cards out of the grid, lay it in the pile of cards and then carefully study the pile for just the right card, replace it in the empty spot, and continue on with the story.  He will do this so long that my tush and legs will fall asleep. lol.

Shopping.  Shopping has always been one of our favorite things to do and it rarely takes less than an hour, and often closer to two hours for a simple shopping trip.  There is so much to see there…lots of letters to point out, lots of counting, lots of interesting sites and sounds.  Ever since he could walk the rule was that as long as he stayed within a reasonable distance and didn’t destroy things that he can continue to walk, otherwise, he had to be in the cart.  He also helps put things in carts since he was so short that we had to lift him up so that he could chuck it over the side of the cart. lol.  (we have learned to live with a lot of dinged packaging and produce until he learned what is ok to throw and what needs to be handled more gently).  He recognizes the staples we usually get and will run right to them as soon as they are in eyeshot…down to what precise kind of milk and coffee we get (the coffee just slays me..the cans even look the same to me and I have to read them to be sure I am getting the right one..makes me really wonder how much he can read)  Some days it is a little more of a struggle when we tell him we don’t need something this time, but most of the time, he will just move on to the next item.  He also likes to push the cart, which is especially amazing when it gets so heavy I have to work a tad to get it moving.  When he is too energetic near bedtime, a shopping trip with him pushing the cart from one end of the store to the other (and back and forth until he slows down some) is the perfect way to wear him out.  He is soooo proud to be helping and loves showing us that he can do it.  It is so funny because he is so short that he can’t see if the cart is full, so one of us has to walk at the front of the cart to steer. 

One of the neatest new developments is his abilty to follow precise directions.  Until recently, when we got apples, for instance, I would first have to get him to stop running around skipping with glee (he loves the produce section..lol) and focus on getting apples and putting them into bags.  Once he started counting the apples as he put them into the bags, I started asking if he could get me three apples (for example) and it would go something like this “1….2….3…good zane…4….that’s enough…..5…6…ok, stop now…attempt 7…..8 as mom is closing the bag….start protesting…have mom help place the apples gently back onto the stand, attempt to return to zipping around, being guided back, taking the closed bag over to the cart and lug over the top of the cart, run around for a bit until we get him refocused on the next item on the list.  (ya see why it takes at least an hour now. lol).  Finally, this week, I asked for 3 apples…he walks right up to the apples, I tell him the red apples, not the green ones this time, small protest, gets the red ones, counts out 3, and stops.  He stops as if that is what he has always done.  I close the bag and hand it to him…no distracting an attempted bolt to get him to finish the job…he just stayed waiting for my to tie the bag and then takes it, holds it over the cart edge and lets the bag dangle until it gently hits the bottom of the cart and then lets go.    I about cried right in the middle of the Target produce section I was so happy.

Now, the funny part of shopping.  The toy section.  We only rarely get him toys, so he doesn’t expect to get anything when we go there…it is more of a site seeing trip.  My 6′4″ kid showed him how fun it was to activate every single elmo, boobah singing/dancing toy on a shelf section so you have a chorus of them performing for you.     It does a good job of distracting him while Zach and I take turns dashing around working on what we want to get him for Christmas and then sending the other person to go look at some particular item.