Now that my daughter has developed all sorts of mobile skills in the last few weeks, she is finding that her brother is a big advocate for her mobile adventures. What started as playing under tables and moving obstacles blocking the stairs, has turned into game with endless possibilities.
My son has very astutely observed that his sister likes to crawl under, through, around, and over lots of things. He seems to be fascinated with the ways in which his sister gets around to get what she wants. With this knowledge and his own sense of adventure, he started moving furniture into different arrangements creating obstacle courses of sorts for his baby sister. While he used the tops of chairs of varying sizes as steps for himself, he carefully watched as his sister crawled under, around, and through his musical chairs. Once she successfully finished his layout of chairs, he would rearrange the chairs sometimes attaching them to larger pieces of furniture which either force her over or under and through more difficult obstacles. Again when she was through his obstacle course, he would make another shape this time putting the chairs on their sides creating a more maze like obstacle. His sister once again played directly into her brother’s arranging hands by crawling and climbing through his arrangement.
I watched with fascination as my children played together in these obstacle courses for over thirty minutes. I was surprised that my three year old son come up with such interesting uses for furniture to entertain and exercise his sister. Even more surprising was that my daughter, of a mere eight months, was happily and excitedly working her way through all the different furniture arrangements as if she understood that her brother had made them just for her. I am pleased that they can find creative ways to play together and that they get along so well too!