The other day I was reading a book to Ethan on the couch, and Lucas casually walked by eating a bagel.
Wait, how did he get that?
Lucas is a forager.
Usually, after a meal, there will be some leftovers. We’ll usually make a plate of these leftovers and leave them on the table. So you might see a plate with a couple of crackers, half a bagel, and some carrots sitting out between meals. If a child gets hungry, they can stop by and grab a snack.
This keeps the requests for a snack down and is a good way to make sure we don’t waste food.
Lucas has discovered this and now is climbing up onto a chair and onto the kitchen table to grab food. This makes me worried because he is not 100% steady climbing that chair, and I want to discourage him from climbing on tables.
Lucas has other ways to forage for food. For example, he will go into the pantry, remove a cereal container almost as tall as him, and carry it around the house until we open it and give him some.
It’s cute and a little scary.
He hasn’t gotten into Buffy’s food…yet.
Lucas is a forager.
Usually, after a meal, there will be some leftovers. We’ll usually make a plate of these leftovers and leave them on the table. So you might see a plate with a couple of crackers, half a bagel, and some carrots sitting out between meals. If a child gets hungry, they can stop by and grab a snack.
This keeps the requests for a snack down and is a good way to make sure we don’t waste food.
Lucas has discovered this and now is climbing up onto a chair and onto the kitchen table to grab food. This makes me worried because he is not 100% steady climbing that chair, and I want to discourage him from climbing on tables.
Lucas has other ways to forage for food. For example, he will go into the pantry, remove a cereal container almost as tall as him, and carry it around the house until we open it and give him some.
It’s cute and a little scary.
He hasn’t gotten into Buffy’s food…yet.
****
I’ve gotten into a good routine with Ollie. After lunch, we do some reading or writing work, I help him practice his violin, and then he has iPad time. It took some time to feel out how to work with him, but we are doing pretty well.
With all of this work, I want to keep it light and not over-teach him. Imperfect work at this point feels appropriate. Routine, practice and good focus are what is most important right now.
Ethan doesn’t want to miss out, so he will sit down and do “writing work,” mostly putting stickers in a workbook and coloring over letter outlines. He wants the routine of doing work, and he doesn’t want to be left out.
I have found that Lucas has a desire to do work as well. For example, we were playing with blocks, and I dumped them out, and as I was building, he would take one block and put it back in the box one by one. I initially thought he wanted to make something, but he was more interested in the work of cleaning up. Finally, after he had put them all away, he looked up at me and grunted. So I dumped the blocks out, and he eagerly began the process of putting them away again.
There is meaning in work, and even though children may resist it, they desire the practice and process of work.
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