Monkey See...Monkey Do

Hailey Reading a Book at Barnes & Noble

Hailey is so easily influenced by what she sees these days. As an adult, I rarely see someone doing something that makes me think, “Oh, I gotta try that.” Hailey, on the other hand, wants to do everything that other kids or adults are doing. Sometimes that works to our advantage and sometimes it’s, well, a disaster. Take two examples from the past week.

First, Hailey watches a little boy learning to float on his back in the pool. She decides that she wants to try it too. When you put Hailey on her back in the pool, it’s kind of like trying to knock over a weeble wobble toy. She always bounce back the front, and she floats about as well. Still, it was good to practice because they say learning to float is the best way to keep kids safe around water.

Episode number two involved Hailey watching an older boy hang from this strange playground apparatus at our park. She decides that she absolutely must hang like that, and she cannot possibly receive any help climbing up the 6 ft high equipment. When Mommy would not let her do such things by herself, I was left with a tantrumy (but safe) little girl.

Oh, as a bonus monkey see episode, I should share with you Hailey’s first gymnastics experience. We had the gymnastics Olympic trials on TV over the weekend. Completely unprompted, Hailey got down on the floor and started to do forward rolls, only she can’t quite do the roll part. So, she basically stands there with her head on the ground until she falls over sideways. If we try to help her flip, she gets angry…Little Miss Independence!