This is a staged photo. I set this up to tell you a story about a play that lasted all of two minutes.
So a couple of days ago, Miss 18mo picked up the empty basket in this picture, went straight to the shelf with all her felt vegetables and began filling the basket with them. She was very precise in her quest and took great care in selecting the vegetables off the shelf and then positioning them in the basket just where she wanted them. When she was finished, she swung the basket onto her forearm so that the entire basket hung on her arm by the handle (just like how I do it when I go to the shops). She then said “buy” followed by “ti-ti” while making a tapping action in mid-air as if she were holding a credit card. In the next moment, she tipped the entire contents of the basket onto the floor and went off to do the next thing. The play was over. It lasted a grand total of about 2 minutes. It began and ended so fast I didn’t even have time to snap a picture of the play which is why I have to set it up myself to tell you this story. If I wasn’t paying such close attention to what she was doing, I would have missed it all.
A lot of times, I hear concerned parents saying things like “I can never get my child to sit still and focus on an activity for more than 2 minutes” or “I set up something for her to do and she plays with it for 2 minutes and that’s it”. I hear you, because I have exactly such a child too. But never underestimate the value of even that 2 minutes of play. Your child is processing so much information, making connections of what she has seen and making sense of the world in which she lives in ALL in that mere two minutes 🙂
