Social imagination

In addition to watching her cognitive skills develop, it's also interesting to watch The Kid's social skills develop as well. They go hand-in-hand, of course.

This afternoon The Lady and I were keeping The Kid busy by having her ferry small items back and forth between us in her little plastic wagon: a book, an empy can, a slipper...

On a few ocassions, after picking up her cargo from me, The Kid spontaneously said ''Bye!'', and waved good-bye, as she walked away. Now, I'm sure she knew that she wasn't actually going **away** -- just to the next room. But she has enough of an intuitive sense of the meaning of ''Good-bye'', and the social situations in which it's used, that she can apply it to an imaginitive, play situation. Pretty neat!

Similarly, even though she can't talk yet -- her pronounciation for most words is pretty much non-useful, and she can't string multiple words together (e.g. she can say ''Down" or ''keys", and ''please'' -- but not ''down, please'' or ''keys please''). But with her little toy cell phone, she can press the button to make it ring; pick it up and say ''Hi!', babble away in quasi-sentences; and then say ''Bye!'' and put the phone down. In other words, internalize and then mimic the social behaviors of the surrounding adults. Interesting! :)

One year, seven months (AKA ''nineteen months'').


--GG