Thursday, August 26, 2010

Elbow Rodeo

When Myers and I were just young pups, we used to play elbow rodeo. Not sure if this is a game that we invented or something that other people did as well. The way it works is one person would grab on to the elbow skin of the second person. Then, the second person flails their arm around while the first person tries to keep hold of the elbow skin. I know everyone is going to pause right now for a quick game of elbow rodeo with their friends and family. Not the most exciting game in the world but it was fun for two 13 year olds.

The reason I bring this up is because Owen has started to play the game of diaper rodeo. Once he started crawling, he decided that a great time to practice crawling was the exact moment that I was attempting to change his diaper. He flips himself over and tries to scoot away no matter if he is on the changing table or the floor. There were several occasions where he would be on the floor army crawling away with his butt cheeks hanging out of a partially attached diaper. This whole routine seemed to be very amusing for Owen but quite exasperating for me.

After several days of chasing him around the floor or repeatedly flipping him over on the changing table, I decided to try and distract him with something to see if that would make him forget to play diaper rodeo. The first thing I grabbed was a baby shoe and handed it to him before I started the diaper change. He loved it. Owen was inspecting (and biting) the shoe and was so engrossed that he completely forgot to flip over and try to crawl away. I couldn't believe how interested he was in a tiny shoe. Now, he gets to play with the shoe during his diaper changes but only at that time. This way he doesn't get bored with it and I genuinely think he looks forward to playing with the shoe as a treat.

It has been so amazing to see how quickly he picks up new skills. Within a couple of days he went from army crawling, to real crawling, to pulling himself up and now "cruising" on the furniture. We had to lower his mattress because after he pulled himself up he was trying to eat his way out of the crib!

3 comments:

The Womacks said...

Nope, you're the only people who play Elbow Rodeo in the entire world.

Laura said...

I did see the diaper shoe today and I didn't realize that was his diaper toy. I am amazed at how much he's changed in just 2 weeks! So many major skills in such a short period of time!!

Meredith said...

Way to go Owen!!! I'm excited I get to see all of these skillz he's learning.

And I realize I just saw you but I know how fun it is to get blog comments. :)