Observing a four year old, a three year old, and a four month old in action, particularly traversing parking lots, weaving through aisles at stores and positioning themselves on couches has recently gotten me wondering: when do children begin to appreciate the laws of physics? I mean when do they start to understand that if another body is taking up that bit of space, then my body can not take up said space?
I'll give an example. today as we wiggled our collective booties out of the minivan in the Target parking lot...but wait, let me interrupt my own train of thought. There is nothing mini about a minivan. Trying to get a stroller between my vehicle and another in a parking lot while manipulating the infant carrier (which increases my 12 pound infant's weight to 12,000 pounds) and corralling two preschoolers is near impossible without someone ending up with a contusion to the noggin. You see, rear-view mirrors are at the exact height of the average four year old. For awhile, it didn't matter if the kids were paying attention to where they were going, they'd slide effortlessly under the mirrors. Today though, I find myself having to think like a seeing-eye dog for all of the kids. It's not that they have any sort of vision problems. No, they have physics problems.
The synapses spark along something like this: Get out of van. Hold onto stroller or I'll get a timeout. Must get into Target as fast as I can so I can convince Mommy to buy me a $1 piece of junk plastic toy from the dollar section that they strategically place at the front of the store so all mommies have to get their child something each and every time they enter Target. I love Target. Target has cool big round thingies at the front of the store. Maybe we can sit on them and pretend we laid giant eggs. THUMP! Whaaaa! Where did that mirror come from?!
So, maybe I just answered my own question about why they don't notice the mirror. Or it could be because while they're holding onto the stroller, they're gazing at the baby, attempting to hold his hand and remind him that he is the sweetest baby in all the land, so they aren't looking in the direction of the mirror. So, yes, distraction plays a role.
But for them to not realize that it is just not possible for the stroller and the two of them to squeeze through a 2 1/2 foot space just confuses me. They'll sometimes think hard enough to realize, "Hey, maybe I should turn sideways to fit through," but it never ever seems to occur to either of them to walk behind the stroller or to slide in front of the stroller and make a little toddler train. Maybe that's where I've gone wrong. I haven't turned the event of moving from the Swagger Wagon to the targeted venue into a game with a Disney-worthy song.
OK, so here goes.
Sometimes it's not so easy when you're really small.
To get into the grocery store or Target or the mall.
The parking space is so narrow, not big enough for three
To squeeze through all together so we create a train you see!
Celia is the engine and Mikey's a freight car.
Who's taking up the rear? It's Mommy and Xavier!
Sure, that last part needs some work on the rhyming. I'll perfect it during my abundant spare time.
Anyway, the parking lot is only the beginning. I could write a whole post on getting through doors with a stroller. The person who invented automatic doors and handicapped automatic door openers is a saint in my book. If I had time to spearhead a campaign, it would be to have stroller parking places in all parking lots and automatic door opening devices on doors in public places. In the meantime, I suppose I could park in more faraway spots without cars on either side and get Mikey and Celia to pump some iron so they can open the doors for me. Until then, I'll just try to think like a three and four year old and remind them that the laws of physics do indeed apply even to supercute, supertiny humans.
Good stuff! :)
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