Categories: family
Date: 03 April 2009 09:07:38
Learning to speak has a number of distinct stages (according to a speech development book I read recently)… and it’s interesting listening to my kids go through the developmental stages. But what I’ve noticed recently is that learning to tell the time also has its stages:
The first stage has just been mastered by Baby Son – he can tell when he’s day-time and when it’s night-time and sleeps during the correct one!
Daughter is at the next stage, when speech is beginning to be involved. After breakfast she’ll announce, “teef-time”. So we go and clean her teeth. When she sees the changing mat on the floor and she’s aware that she needs a nappy change she’ll say “nappy-time” and lie on the mat. And of-course she’s fully aware of what happens when we get to “bed-time”… or what to do when her brother announces “It’s mornin’-time!”
Elder Son is onto the next stage. He knows about numbers and will ask, “Is it 3 o’clock?” And he’ll often try and connect the time with an activity, for example, “Is 6 o’clock mornin’-time?” But his grasp of the time is poor and getting him to recognise that 6 o’clock is not morning even if the sun is up can be hard.
Actually mornings aren’t too bad. It’s bed-time, 7 o’clock, which occasionally can be a problem. Close the curtains and Baby goes to sleep, but the other two in the room (the 3 share one large room) are less easy. The other evening Elder Son told me that he and his sister were going to play at night-time. I suggested sleeping would be better and continued with the usual routine: stories, prayers and good-night kisses, then I told them it was bed-time and switched out the light. I closed the door and listened:
Elder Son: “Shall we play?”
Daughter: “Yes!”
*sound of two pairs of feet jumping out of bed*
Baby Son remained asleep, Elder Son didn’t switch the light on (he can only reach by standing on a step stool and no stool-moving was heard!), and they remained in their room so I took the relaxed-parenting approach.
I ignored the heavy footsteps and laughter for almost an hour. Then at about 8 o’clock I went back into their room, and found them playing with an inflatable beach-ball by the light of Elder Son’s torch. I suggested that perhaps it was finally bed-time, and they both got into bed without argument and went straight to sleep!