Practicing

I think that Margaret is going to be a good big sister.*

Today, after her nap, she took her doggy outside.  And she put him in her swing, and pushed him for a while.

Sometimes, at the park, she pushes the swing when she wants up in it, as a way of suggesting to me that perhaps she could get in on this swinging thing that seems to be going on.  I thought that she was subtly suggesting that I could put her in the swing.  So I asked her if she wanted up (or, as I find myself saying more often now than I would like to admit, “uppy”).  She said “No.  Doggy.  Whee.”  (Whee is her word for swing.  Just go with it).

And then, in case I hadn’t quite grasped what was going on, she offered me a synonym:  “Woof,” she said, and pointed at the dog.

I’m taking away from this experience two things: she really is getting that words fit together to convey complex concepts (the dog is in the swing, dummy.  See?  The dog.) and she wants to share things she enjoys with others.

I’m not ridiculously keen on the idea of her putting the baby in the swing, since it will be the middle of the winter.  Also, her method of getting the dog in the swing was to cram him through the leg hole, and it took some shoving and some bending.  But the impulse is good.  So we can hope.

*Provided her little sister does what she’s told with a minimum of fuss and thinking for herself.