The love of airplanes is still going strong.
Recently I invested $3 in three plastic placemats. You know - the kind you had as a kid that was spill-resistant and that had your favourite characters on it? I bought one with airplanes, helicopters, blimps and space shuttles, one with lions and tigers and elephants and giraffes, and one with butterflies and ladybugs and flowers and leaves. Bobbin wasted no time in claiming the airplane one as hers. I pointed out each object and said its name and then made a sound and a hand signal for each one. For the helicopter I whirled my hand above my head, for the shuttle I put two hands together as in prayer and raised them up above my head and separated them. For the airplane I stuck to the one she made up oh so long ago when she first started becoming interested in them. For the blimp I couldn't think of a hand signal, so I just made a "hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm" noise.
She had them all down pat, after one round. The space shuttle is now her favourite, followed closely by the jet plane, then the helicopter, and then the blimp.
On a completely separate note, but still airplane-related, as I mentioned in my previous post, we went to the lego store today. It was an adventure to say the least - some fun and some not so fun. Her attempt to leave the store with a stack of the legos that they leave out for kids to play with was not so fun. The legos were just laying out there. She picked them up. Therefore they were hers. Therefore she could leave the store with them. Not. Yeah, these are gonna be some fun months ahead ;-). But when we first got in there, it was all fun and games. I took her over to the "duplo" section. She made a beeline for the giant duplo airplane-with-airport-and-fuel-trucks set. The thing was huge. It was almost as tall as her, and was just as wide as both her arms outstretched. It was sitting on the bottom shelf. All alone. The last one in stock. Bobbin ran over to it, pointed at the picture of the airplane, and looked excitedly at me. "Yes! An airplane! That's pretty cool, huh?". Bobbin smiled and started pulling on the box. "Honey, that's too big for you. Let's leave it on the shelf. We're not going to buy it today anyway". She paused, looked at me, and then turned around and continued pulling. Because I'm, well, me, and I like to see what Bobbin's capable of, as well as let things go through to their natural conclusion (obviously excepting anything that is illegal or unhealthy, and anything that is inappropriate behaviour like pushing, spitting, biting, yelling, name calling, taking without asking etc, or anything that could result in someone getting hurt or something expensive getting broken... that's all ;-)) I just stood back and watched.
She managed to slowly maneuver the giant box off the shelf and onto the floor. And then she stood at it, looking at it, and I swear she was thinking "Ok, now what?".
Then she looked at me, and she started pushing the box to me. Only the box wouldn't push well, it being narrow as well as tall and wide, and thus prone to tipping, so she actually stretched her arms out to either side, wrapped the tippy-tips of her fingers around the edge, and lifted it up.
All I could see what a tiny tuft of whale-spout hair at the top, two little feet at the bottom, and a set of little (white) finger tips on either side of the box. And it was moving towards me. I stifled a laugh.
She stopped for a break and put it down and looked at me pleadingly. I bent down and spent some time looking at the box with her, pointing out the airplane, and the fueling truck, and the airport workers, and the airport. And then I picked it up and put it back on the shelf and said "It's a cool airplane honey, but we're not going to buy it. We're going to buy train tracks instead" and handed her the last box of tracks that was sitting on the shelf (the store desperately needs to restock!) and took her hand and led her to the cash register.
She took it all quite well. No protests. No tears. As I was paying for the tracks she wandered back over to the lego table and played with the little lego cars and trucks and buildings until it was time to go. And that's where we get to the attempted lego-heist. I ended up taking the stack of legos from her after repeatedly telling her to put them back or give them to the man at the counter. And then I led her out of the store, tears streaming down her face, sobbing as though I took away her most prized possession, with parents smiling at her and at me the entire time. Cause yes, even her temper tantrum was oh so cute. To strangers. :-)
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