Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Drawing Conclusions

It's hard to know what goes through an infant's mind other than "I'm hungry" "I'm wet" "I'm tired," etc.  Their minds are definitely absorbing many things.  And from all of the things they are exposed to, I wonder what things get caught in the net of their brains.  

One thing I've noticed recently is that I'm pretty sure Gordon Lee is synthesizing information and drawing conclusions.  Why do I think this? There are a few behaviors I have noticed recently.

First of all, he has had a cold for a little under a week now, and I've been using saline drops and a bulb syringe to clear his nasal passage.  Well, he absolutely hates this and would rather I just leave him to have clogged nasal passages.  After a few days of this, I realized the other day that he was starting to pitch a fit before I had even touched him!  All I had to do was come at him with either the nose drops or the bulb syringe and he'd start pitching a fit. He knew he did not like these things enough to react before anything had happened. To me, that is drawing a conclusion.  He is anticipating the outcome before it even occurs.


Second, we've discovered that the camera has been used so much around him that he knows what to do when he sees one.  Unless he is extremely cranky for some other reason, he will always stop and pose for the camera.  When we took him to have his six month photos taken, the wait was really long due to a lot of people wanting pictures around the holidays.  Right as I decided we had been waiting too long because his nap time was around the corner, they called our name.  The photographer asked if we could try pictures anyway just to see what he would do.  And sure enough, even though he was previously getting restless and fussy, he stopped to pose and smile for the camera! 
Clearly, her camera looks different than mine, but he is used to seeing the same action and is starting to realize that he should smile at this thing.

Finally, the biggest one I realized just the other day.  Every single day, I sing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" with him.  I sing that one and a few others because he likes any song that involves hand motions.  As I get to the line "Down came the rain and washed the spider out," I tickle him on "washed the spider out." I had to pay close attention, but I saw that he was starting to laugh and smile right as we got to "down came the rain" in anticipation for the "fun part."  I tried it multiple times at random.  And, sure enough, he is starting to get excited right before I'm about to tickle him.

He is clearly retaining information and anticipating what is going to happen based on his experiences.  

I wonder what other things are going through his little head. :)