Buttons and Stuff

Yoni is one interesting little guy! I've been watching him lately as he discovers how things work and what he can do in order to have an effect on his environment. Often, this simply means yelling for Kate's or my attention until he can get us to do what he wants, i.e. pick him up, play with him, or feed him. Other times it means picking two things up and smacking them together to make a noise, over and over and over again.

The other day, he woke up from his morning nap and we started examining his music box together. It's a little thing that's attached to his crib. It plays songs and makes nature sounds. It also has moving animals and lights. Check it out:
So my little man is sitting there, and we're looking at this together, and I show him that when he presses the toucan in the bottom right, the whole thing turns on or off. He's fascinated! But that's not all, because over the course of the day, he made the connection with light switches. When I walk into a room with him in my arms, he looks for the light switch in the room. Even though he doesn't have the manual dexterity to move the switch up or down, he wants to touch the switch, and he clearly knows that this little switch is connected to the light on the ceiling or the lamp that's plugged into the wall. It's all one thing to him.

Yoni is a boy all the way. He is particularly enchanted by things that blink, that have buttons, that light up. Basically, all things electronic. If one is not careful in our house, Yoni may be found eating any of the following:

Telephones
Remote controls
Any and every part of a computer
Baby monitor
Ipod
Cameras
Calculators
Clocks
Radios

It struck me this morning, as I was trying to keep Yoni away from the computer keyboard, that he loves to touch it for the same reason that he loves light switches: he can affect a clear, noticeable change. He sees me press buttons on the keyboard or mouse and things change on the computer screen. He wants that power!!!!! So I took him down to the basement and sat him on my lap in front of my keyboard. It was like I had given him the world! He just went nuts. He was yammering away while he pressed down on the different keys and buttons.

I guess this was something I had seen before. Yoni loves to touch my guitars or my banjo, but I had never put together what was so specifically interesting to him. When he touches something, he is actually able to make something else react. It doesn't matter if it's a light or a music box or a musical instrument or a computer. Yoni has discovered that he has the power to make things happen, and he loves it!

Oh yeah, and straws. For some reason he loves straws.