Monday, March 05, 2007

playing with friends & pretending

Jonah had the best time ever last Saturday. We had a get-together at our house and his best friend Finn was one of the guests. While the adults ate and chatted, the two boys played together. They were able to interact and have much more fun than ever before. Jonah can communicate a little bit better and is becoming less self-absorbed as he gets older. His imagination is expanding too. The two of them chased each other, played peeek-a-boo, read books, drew, and jumped on the bed. What a great feeling to see Jonah enjoy himself with a friend!

Yesterday Tim, Jonah and I went on a walk in a beautiful area with wide open fields and old trees along side of a river. Jonah found a large wood chip that reminded him of a fish. He called it "fish" and threw it in the field. Then he pretended the field was a lake and fed wood chips to the fish in the lake, saying "papat", which means "to eat" in Czech. He played this game for quite a while. It was amazing to see his imagination at work.

Today we went to the playground. There Jonah shared the slide with another little girl. At one point he stepped on her hand while they were both climbing up the ladder. The girl said something to the effect of "ouch", but Jonah seemed oblivious, too focused on getting to the top of the slide. I stopped him and told him in a language he could understand that it hurt the girl when he stepped on her foot. About half way home, he recalled the incident, repeating "au" (Czech version of ouch) in a slightly whiny voice and "baby." He remembered stepping on the girl's hand and was discussing the experience with me. He seemed concerned. I told him that I don't think it was too serious and not to worry, just be careful next time. I'm not sure he understood that, but it was interesting to see him processing something that happened in the past and that seemed significant to him.

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