Social Skills

Ian is clearly becoming more social, as we mentioned earlier. He is developing social skills -- we're not always sure whether to consider him resourceful or manipulative. Yesterday he told me he wanted Daddy's tool with the bubble in the middle (the level -- his current object of greatest interest). I told him he would have to wait until Daddy was available to show him how to use it (i.e. to make sure that he doesn't break it). He went about his activities. A bit later he opened the fridge and asked for a yogurt. I got him one and he said "Daddy, too." So he got another yogurt, got a clean spoon out of the dishwasher, and went to find Doug and bring him his yogurt. He wanted to eat yogurt together at the table with Daddy. How sweet. The moment Doug finished his yogurt, Ian said "I'd like Daddy's tool". We began to suspect that the yogurt was just a ploy to get Doug engaged so that he could get the level. Clever?

Ian is also interested in showing things to his peers. He is very excited about his new light-up shoes. He has been asking for them for weeks and weeks (Vance, Maeve's older brother, has light up shoes, and Ian's first pair of shoes had lights but are no longer working). Finally we decided that his older pair of shoes is definitely to small for him to wear anymore (and we have discovered that a boy really needs two pairs of shoes, since one is often dirty or wet), so I went to Sears with him to pick out new shoes. With lights. He took it very seriously, taking all the different shoe boxes off the shelf and inspecting them carefully. He gave quite a bit of consideration to some super shiny pink Disney princess shoes, but fortunately determined that he lights on those were not sufficiently impressive. He happily wore his new shoes home and danced around in his dark room, holding his pantlegs up and watching the lights. Today he left in the morning very interested in showing Maeve, Vance, and Lisa his new shoes. Fortunately Maeve noticed them right away and was impressed, and I heard that Vance got quite a foot-stomping show from Ian when he arrived home from school at the end of the day. It's definitely no longer just Mommy and Daddy's opinion of things that matters. (We had somewhat mixed feelings about all the new shoe excitement. We're hoping Ian will develop over time a delight in having some special things, not a obsession with consumerism.)