As we near a year and a half, Remy continues his evolution from infant to big boy. As is said by anyone who knows anything about babies and children, every child has their own schedule and order of preference when it comes to skill development. Sure, there are typical patterns of maturation that are common across human infants, but each child focuses on different domains in a way that gives you a preview into their adult personalities.
If I could pick two words to describe Remy’s patterns it would be impetus and contemplation. When reviewing his skill development prioritization, these seem to be the driving themes. Best I can tell. It will be fun to look back at this post a few years down the road and see how these themes have played out.
Impetus is a moving force. I think I remember spying a glint in little infant R’s eye when he realized that the ability to put weight on his feet while being held up by his hands was a step closer to walking and running. Physical skill development, especially of the gross motor variety, has always been super high priority. Crawling was ‘sloppy seconds’ to the real deal of walking and running, and his efforts reflected this.
Although he’s been walking for about 7 months already, he’s still all about figuring out more ways to move. Speed and agility are his things, so as soon as he feels comfortable with a particular move, he works on executing it with more and more speed and not with a lot of patience. These days, he climbs all over and into everything. Once it stops raining, snowing and being generally stupid cold around here, Daddy Gary is taking the little guy outside for some skateboard lessons on the off-road board he got from Santa.
Smugly satisfied with his unassisted tub climbing ability.
Contemplation is the act of considering with attention. Obviously, I can’t get inside the little guy’s head, but he’s been giving the impression that he’s frequently puzzling over problems from very early on. Grandma Crumpler has described him as thoughtful, so it’s not just my clearly biased observation. Books have been a big draw since early on and he seems to consider things before he tries them the first time. Even physical skills, although once he thinks he’s got it figured out the thoughtfulness goes out the window.
Remy showing his thoughtful, pensive side.
Contemplation has been a big influence on language skills. He’s a little slow on the uptake with his spoken vocabulary, but that’s not for lack of understanding nearly everything we say. It’s as if he just didn’t care to try speaking words before he understood more. He managed to communicate with a variety of sounds and gestures (including several self-developed baby signs), so he just focused his energy on making as many connections as possible between spoken words and objects. There’s lots of pointing and the expectation that Gary and/or I say the name of what he’s pointing at. If we aren’t paying close attention and say the wrong word, he’ll keep pointing at the same object until we get it right. When we find a picture of say, a turtle, in a book, it’s imperative that he point out the turtles painted on the wall and any other turtles that can be found in the vicinity. With much enthusiasm.
Just lately, though, he’s been making efforts to actually say words in addition to his standard repertoire of yeah, uh-oh, wow, mama and dada. Cat is kah, dog is doh, etc. There’s also a lot of elaborate baby talk that seems to be intended as actual words that we can’t yet understand. I figure that now that he’s on task, the talking thing will fall into place fairly quickly. He’s also learning colors and will go to great lengths to find a blue object to match another blue object at hand. This, I understand, is why one of his stackable cups migrated from upstairs in his bedroom to the downstairs bathroom.
So, yeah, our little guy is perfectly normal and on track with his development, which is fine and dandy. The part I most love is the display of individual characteristics that make him Remy Z. Crumpler, thoughtful and active little guy that he is.
Remy is one smart and physically gifted little guy. I love that he matches colors. Looks like he cares about the details. It will be interesting to see how these play out as he gets older. I’ve already given up all hope that Zach will have even a little bit of patience now or in the future.
I’m not so sure he’s so much “physically gifted” as he is “focused on physical skills”, but having read about the importance of deliberate practice for high-level performance (http://aliciaparr.com/blog/?p=1737), I suppose it might effectively be the same thing.
I had to laugh while reading this post because Sara’s development sounds very similar to Remy’s. Her language ability is beginning to emerge as well (she too has a lot signs). She understands a lot more than she verbalizes and is very adament on showing me various things until I say what it is that she’s pointing at. She’s a very active little girl and is determined on learning more physical skills and could kind of care less about talking, although she is also starting to say more “words”. Remy’s bathtub climbing skills are quite impressive!
The photo of Remy looking at printed matter in the above photo reminded me of you sitting on our bed carefully looking at a magazine. My guess, he will be just as smart as you. Watch out!!