Hide and Seek and Other Ari Updates
Mar 29th, 2006 by Brian A. Thomas
Ari has learned to play Hide and Seek. He’ll say “Hide!” at which point we hide while he counts to 3… well, more like “One, two, one!” with what is reasonably close to “ready or not here I come daddy/mommy” (depending on who he is going to be looking for that time. Sometimes, when he hides, I pretend not to see where he is at for some time, searching behind mom first, and the like. He has picked up on this and does it himself, even though you can tell he knows where you are right away. The really odd thing about it all is that nobody taught him Hide and Seek. Nearly the best we can figure is that he learned it from TV, but to learn it in such detail is amazing.
He has also learned the words “help” and “stuck.” If he gets stuck, he’ll shout “Daddy, help! Stuck!” If he just needs help, he’ll just call for help. Of course I suspect that most of the time when he is stuck he got stuck on purpose to play a game.
A kid his age is supposedly supposed to identify up to 3 items in a picture book or puzzle. Ari is way beyond that. He hasa a Wooden Latches Board and he can identify, if not the animal’s name itself, the sound it makes. I think he knows most of the animals names, but chooses to say the sound instead. (Behind each latch door are some animals or other objects.)
