Toddler Fingers Are Made for Poking

My 13 month-old daughter is now known as the "Little Mommy" at day care. As one of the oldest in her class, she spends a lot of time with tiny babies. Whenever the babies cry, she tries to comfort them by giving them toys--so sweet!

Her favorite toys at home are her dolls (or our electronic gadgets). If we pretend to make crying sounds, she'll rush over to a doll, pick it up and insert her own finger in its mouth--adorable, but...YIKES!!!!!!!! Is my thumb-sucking little "Jack-y Horner" sticking her finger in babies' mouths at day care? GERM ALERT! GERM ALERT! (Hence, her constant snot.) And oh, does this make my daughter a certified hands-on intervention specialist?--he he!

The point is that she likes babies, at least the happy ones. So Friday when she pinched her finger in the oven mitt drawer (she has declared it hers and leaves pot holders all over the house), how did I comfort her? I ran it under cold water immediately, but when she kept crying and became impatient with the whole faucet scene, I got creative. I popped open the laptop--the one she's obsessed with minus the Control Key that she stole 3 weeks ago--and found giggling baby videos on YouTube®. She LOVED them!!! Definitely try this "cheer-'em-up" trick with your kiddos.

While playing around online, I found a cute video of a kid her age who could point to the various parts of his body after being asked where are your eyes? where are your ears?, etc. So I thought, hey, this would be a great activity for me to do with my daughter! She knows many of these vocabulary words already, and the activity is tactile/kinesthetic and a great vocabulary builder.

I thought I'd start with the nose--bad idea! I asked her where it was, and she found it all right. She kept...uh...picking a winner, digging for gems, poking her brain. Yes, no matter what I asked (Where are your ears? Where are your eyes? Where's your head?), she just kept jamming her finger up her nostril and laughing hysterically. Hmm, I wonder if my little jokester is sticking her finger in babies' NOSES at day care, too?

I guess hands-on isn't always a good thing...