Grass walking

Thursday: Jackie loooves my cell phone and will go just about anywhere to get hands on it. I used this as my motivator since she rarely gets it, and it reliably motivates her to do anything just so she can have that glowing little screen. My operation' love the grass' started simply enough-I let her play with my cell phone so she was engaged and then took it from her and put her in the middle of a grassy field. I was about twenty baby steps away from her and holding up my cell phone. oops-I dropped it in clear view onto the grass. She hesitantly walked with her eyes fixated on her feet through the uneven grass. She glanced up form time to time just to make sure her prize was still waiting in the grass. Once she got to my cell phone, I picked her up and praised her! I let her play with it for a bit, and then did it all over again. After only three times of putting her in the center of the grass and making her walk towards me/safety, she was no longer looking at her feet when she walked. She only walked briskly to the phone like a grass walking pro.

Then, I dropped the phone from her hand, held her upside down over thephone and told her to pick it up. She LOVES this game. If she drops anything, she will say "UhOh" and then she'll tilt her head as if she's upside down. That means she wants me to help her get it by dipping her upside towards the ground while she giggles and gets whatever she dropped. She loves being dipped and picking up objects. So, I repeat, I dropped the phone and dipped her to get it. She was excited until her hands got closer to the ground and then they went limp. They absolutely retracted into her elbows and went limp. She is such a weirdo. I picked up a whole bunch of grass and had her hold it but her hands and arms went limp again.

What I discovered: It is not the uneven-ness of the grass because she is a new walker-it is the spiky texture of it if she drops something.

As long as I hold her hand when we first get onto the grass, she will take a few steps and then venture on her own. So, if i hear daycare say she doesn't like walking in it, I know it's not true. However, she has yet to fall or drop something without whining and begging someone for help. I must tell you, when she is sitting on the ground, it is very humerous watching her try to stand up from a sitting position without using her hands.