Happy Feet: The 4D Experience

Sasha describes a movie for Mama.

Piggy and Sister Piggy

For Sasha's first birthday, Aunt Margot got him a Pillow Pet.  A pillow piggy to be exact.  As you can guess from the name, they are stuffed animals that turn into pillows when you undo a velcro tab.  He loved to stuff his face into it's squishiness (who wouldn't?) when he was younger.

Over time, Piggy has grown in importance and now ranks as Indispensable. We travel no distance without taking Piggy along so that Sashsa can sleep peacefully every night.

Since he was old enough to be unswaddled at night, Sasha will only sleep face down.  This has unfortunate consequences for Piggy: it stinks to high heaven after a couple of nights.  Given our lackadaisical attitude toward laundry, the stench will sometimes transfer to Sasha's hair and face for a not-so-fresh morning.  And to make matters worse, he does not want Piggy washed.  He has cried to see it get tossed in the washing machine.  He has grabbed Piggy out of the laundry basket and put it back in the crib.  He has even started sneaking Piggy out of the laundry pile to avoid an argument from the Moms.

We tried introducing a Ugli doll as a secondary pillow, but it was deemed "not soft" by His Highness.  We tried introducing an actual toddler pillow courtesy of Nana, but it was too puffy to sleep face down on.  So we did the only thing left to do and bought another Piggy.  We were afraid he would reject another one.  But no!  He loves Sister Piggy as much as he loves the original.  They were immediate best friends.  After naptime yesterday, the Piggies ran around the crib looking for mud to wallow in because "pigs love mud."

Here they are together in a photo I took for Margot to show the visible difference love can make.

Party in My Crib

This was the scene when I went to get Sasha from his cozy crib at Nana and Zayde's house. That's an entire box of tissues strewn on the floor along with the two drawers from nightstand. The book light that was in one of the drawers made it into the crib. Oh, and he unzipped his pjs - just because he could! The plus side is that he slept until 8am. I guess staying up and playing Destructor makes for a tired boy.

Beeline to Freedom

Developmental psychologists who study children's behavior say that when babies become mobile, they've already developed an instinctive "safety zone" around their caregiver outside of which they won't travel.  Somehow they know that 30 feet, for example, is far enough and after that point, the world becomes too dangerous.  As they grow older, the safety zone grows larger.  Many parents say (and I've often witnessed) that if their toddler doesn't respond to requests to "come back here," they will pretend to walk away or even just step out of sight and, instantly uncomfortable or afraid, the kid comes running back.  Other parents, like me, invest in a leash.

OK, I didn't really invest in a leash but I've always wanted one.  I just can't face the imaginary people who might say, "I can't believe you would treat your child like a dog."  These same imaginary people take their children everywhere by strapping them into a stroller, but that's just the argument starting in my head.  Anyway, Carrie finally gave me one (cleverly disguised as a backpack) on my last visit, but as toddlers usually do, Taylor wanted to wear it when she saw it and then it got lost in the shuffle somehow.  Carrie, you may want to check under the couch.

One fine day when Sasha and I went to the park, I decided to experiment.  I would let him run as far as he wanted and I wasn't going to stop him.  The park is huge and there were no traffic or other dangers lurking as far as I could see.  There had to be some point where he started to care where I was.  The picture above is one I took during this experiment.  What, you don't see him?  Let me help.  Click on the picture below to see the arrow.  Yes that's a picture of his back and yes his legs are still carrying him farther away.

The result of my experiment?  A parenting success!  He doesn't give one whit where I am.  I have raised a child with a strong, healthy sense of independence.