Steps Before Story

"THE LAND OF NOWHERE"
I'm in the land of dragons, / I'm in the land of books, / I'm in the land of games,/ But... / I'm in the land of NOWHERE  !

As a five-year old newly obsessed with an electric typewriter, I appeared to marveling at what happened when I "entered the land of nowhere" in the story above, which I'm interpreting as an adult to mean imagination and play. I remember the ideas I had when I was writing on that incredible machine "coming out of nowhere" like magic, and although my sense of story was clearly still developing, I remember thinking my ending was perfect:

"THE LITTLE WHITE HOUSE"
One [morning] on a hot hot day a little white house was made. Not only it was little but it was pretty. [Because] it had pink window [panes] and a blue roof. But the most [prettiest] of the little white house was the INSIDE. Inside the little white house was a girl her name was Sany. She lived with Her mom and dad.
AND...
[they] were...
worms.

I had a strange interest in worms at the time and found them especially fascinating because they mysteriously appeared on the sidewalk after a good rain, only to vanish as the concrete dried. Yes, worms lived in the ground, but what did a worm's house look like?

As a story, this doesn't quite fly, but it does show how I was starting to conceptualize the concept of surprise in the ending, and although my thought process didn't make it onto the page, it's seems clear to me as an adult, decades later.

Now, I have a two-year-old son who went through a language explosion over the summer. Lately, I've been thinking a lot about language usage and the steps that come before story. I always laugh when my son makes an observation about something that he thinks is really cool ("Crushing cans!") and then exclaims, "Whaaat!" until my sister observed that I often used the same exclamation in the same affectation when he was an infant. I like to think, as someone with a deep love and appreciation for words, that I'm conscious of my vocabulary, speech patterns, and meaning, but I was unaware that this was a phrase I'd included in my everyday interactions with my child until the obvious was pointed out to me. I'm learning to be intentional with my language. As he masters one word, I talk about the object in different ways and at different times, and sometimes I intentionally try to introduce synonyms for mastered words so he can learn new ways of thinking about the idea. When he encounters a new words in a book, I try to point it out in everyday life when we encounter it.

I give credit to the videos on his curated playlist for some of the vocabulary and concepts that he has mastered.  We recently read The Digger and the Flower by Joseph Kuefler, which I love for its rich verbs and cute story line involving large machinery, one of Hanks' many interests. We've read several books that have included heavy machinery or involved personified construction equipment, however, my knowledge and interest in the topic leaves something to be desired. 

Enter Blippi.

It's easy to dismiss Blippi as a YouTube clown, but his videos on excavators, skid steers, and fork lifts are fascinating to my son. As a parent, I appreciate that he doesn't dumb down the language of a topic just because a word might have multiple syllables. 

Blippi has also given my son a strategy for managing his anger as he learns to share with other children. Although I model appropriate behavior over and over, at this point, his frustration just always seemed to overtake everything and result in an inevitable tantrum.This weekend, we noticed that he was walking away from a fight over a toy with his cousin, and engaging in what appeared to be breathing exercises on his own. When I asked him what was going on, he expressed that he was mad.

In a video about emotions, Blippi trips and falls, then expresses that he is mad that he fell and hurt his knee. He gives advice to his viewers that feeling mad is when you get that feeling like smoke is coming out of your ears, and that when you get mad, you need to take deep breaths. Then Blippi models a basic deep breathing exercise before saying "bye bye" to mad. 

I was impressed that my tantrum-throwing two-year old was actually transferring his understanding of a problem and its solution from a video to a real-life situation. 

I am definitely overthinking this, I know. Regardless of what I do, he will still acquire language through interaction, play, imitation, repetition, books, music, and video, like so many other children living in this century. Although obviously back-and-forth exchange plays a critical role in language development, YouTube has helped my child to explore his interests in yet another way. This can only help him as he continues to build his understanding of the world.