Taking the Scenic Route

Smart Zane, blockhead Mama

For Christmas, among other things, I got Zane a dot-to-dot book.  I have spent literally hours sitting with him trying to get him to connect the dots.  He knows how to count, he knows how to draw, I thought it would be an easy transition.  For the most part, he just hands me the pencil and wants me to do it for him, so I spend a lot of time going “you draw it….Zane draw it” and him looking at me like I am crazy.  The first part of the book is ‘count to 10′, so I thought it shouldn’t even be too much of a challenge. 

Tonight, in my attempt to entice him to draw, I kept saying “Let’s see what the picture is, Draw a line between the numbers and you will be able to tell what the picture is” and he kept saying something to me and pointing at the picture like “duh” while I kept doing things like…”see, here is the 1…what is next?”…then he counts up to 20.  I tell him to draw the line so he can see the picture…he babbles to me.  (this goes on for a while) All of a sudden I realized what he was saying.  He kept trying to tell me “Butterfly”  ( “budda fwah”).  I looked a little more closely at the unfinished picture and, sure enough, the picture it was going to make was a butterfly. 

I can occasionally get him to draw lines, but certainly not consistently, and now I am wondering if it is because he isn’t able to follow directions (which is what I was beginning to wonder since it was such a struggle), or isn’t willing to follow directions, or is just flat bored with the whole thing. (which is what I am thinking now)

It just gets more complicated from here.