This weekend my son had a marathon playdate with his friends Zalah, almost 2 years old, and Lyla, who just turned one.
These two ladies are the wonderful children of our friends, Cordy and Chaim.
It’s nice to let the kids play together and actually have some adult conversation time. Although with three of them roaming around it is hard to focus on much of anything but the kids themselves. But we had a lot of fun!
There were lots of kisses and hugs involved (Ari, my son, kissing Zalah, Zalah kissing Ari, Zalah kissing Lyla and so forth)
Cordy and I used to joke that Zalah had the terrible “one’s.” She went through an intense period of separation anxiety and was screaming “Mama!!” constantly. At 2 years old, she is actually pretty laid back. It’s Ari who is going through separation anxiety now.
What was really interesting, is that Ari started to copy Zalah’s words. Zalah has become quite verbose at 2 years of age. Meanwhile, Ari still has his standard words, “bye bye,” “mama” “dada” “what’s that?” (which sounds more like “wuzzz dat?”) and a few others.
Ari tried to steal Zalah’s sippy cup. Zalah took her property back and said:
“MINE!”
Soon afterward, he was running around the apartment grabbing his toys and shouting “MY!!!!” Not quite “mine” but close enough in his own language.
It’s fascinating how kids pick up on other kid’s language.
Now, my son is not a great sharer. In fact, he is awful at sharing. He wants all his toys to himself and gets really upset when even I try to take one away from him. But now he is privy to the word “mine!”
I want to teach him how to share, but I’m not sure how to do it. I’ve tried explaining to him that though the toy is, his he has to share it. However, he doesn’t seem to grasp the concept.
Any ideas, fellow parents?