HOW TO RAISE A BOY – PART 1

 

The Little Mountain Man:

Here is an update for all of you on Cooper Kenneth. . . .      He is taking a walk, going somewhere, blazing his own trail.     He is wearing the same jacket that his Grandpa was known to wear.  Grandpa bought his own red plaid wool jacket when he was in high school, and that became his trademark jacket for our cold, snowy winters.    Now the grandson carries on the tradition.

Last December I was out taking a walk  like this with Cooper Kenneth and his Mommy one day.     Altitude, 7,100 feet;   it was an issue with my old bones,  but not with them.    I was amazed at Cooper’s strength and determination to walk through that pine cone littered pathway, pushing reluctant plastic wheels through the soft forest floor.

And then when we got back to his mountain home nearby,  mommy took away the little train and he crawled up a full flight of stairs to the deck level.  Mommy opened the door for him and he crawled in over the threshold of the door . . . .

. . . .  and then up another flight of stairs to the main floor. . . . .

He got himself into his home.

I silently applauded my daughter for this, because Cooper, the Little Mountain Man, will need all the strength and self-reliance he can develop as he grows up.

He has a smart Daddy too.     Cooper plays with his toys the way they were made to be used;  colorful, noisy, complex learning devices, actually.    He has quite a long attention span with each one, but occasionally he will get frustrated when something is stuck or he can’t get something to do what he wants it to do.    There will be little sounds of frustration –  but his Daddy will call out across the room:   “Whining won’t fix it.  Look at it and figure it out.”

Then there’ll be silence for a while.   And pretty soon more satisfied cooing and chuckling coming from Cooper again.    Problem-solving at 13 months old.    No whining allowed.

Some of the toys play happy children’s songs , which he uses as “background music” while he’s playing with another toy.   When the music stops he crawls over and presses the button so the music starts again.  Then he goes back to the toy he was “working on.”    I was struck by how he deliberately kept the music going in the background.

Learning to be responsible for his own environment.

Learning to be responsible for his own happiness. . . .

(More photos of Cooper Kenneth on the way, as requested….)

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