It has been one emotional breakdown after another over the last couple days, but we finally figured it out. Here is Alice successfully navigating her new doll stroller around the house:
[flv width="400" height="300"]http://evansfamily.powweb.com/movies/2008/StrollerSuccess.flv[/flv]
Let me explain how truly monumental this little video clip is. For all of us. For the last two days (that's when the stroller joined our household), whenever the stroller would run in to a wall or piece of furniture, Alice would scream and shake the stroller violently and finally collapse herself on the floor in tears. As soon as Bobby or I would unstick it, she'd hop up (still sobbing) and run away with it as fast as she could, thus smacking it into another wall or piece of furniture and collapsing in frustration yet again. I could tell she desperately wanted to play with it, but she couldn't get it to work.
I wanted to help her sooooooo bad. I cleared everything off the floor...but the walls remained. I took her and the stroller outside...she ran it into the garden fence. Finally, this morning, I put my hands on top of hers and let her feel how I turned the stroller this way and that. I noticed at that moment that the front wheels had been half-locked into the "straight" position this whole time. They would turn enough for an experienced cart-pusher to make it work, but it was a hopeless situation for a newbie. I unlocked the wheels and Alice was zipping around corners and avoiding obstacles in two minutes.
Woo hoo!
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Yay! Go Alice! It seems that most of the time, the big frustrations come from little problems. That was some great parental problem solving. We love you guys.
ReplyDeleteShe looks like a pro in the video.
ReplyDeleteI know she loves Raggedy Ann, and now this stroller. Is she a real girly-girl who loves to play dolls and mothering games? Or more middle of the road at this point?
I'm not much of a girly-girl, and I've had to work hard to give Alice girly-girl opportunities to balance the boyly-boy ones I'm personally drawn to.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's just her awkward role model, but Alice doesn't seem to act very motherly :) I think she's still very literal. No pretend play just yet. She explores, climbs, throws, slides, opens and closes, hugs, and digs in all sorts of circumstances, but no fantasy play as far as I can tell. It will certainly be interesting to see what she does once she can create her own story lines.
There may be something to the fact that Alice likes to snuggle Raggedy Ann instead of her toy elephant or stuffed frog. Are human-like forms inherently more interesting to her? Or is she just copying our behavior? Bobby and I do hug and kiss Raggedy much more than the elephant or frog. I don't mind either way. I just love to see her happy.