Monday, May 11, 2009

A Toddler's Memory

The other day, Troy and I decided to walk to Rite Aid and get Mia her first ice cream cone. She'd had ice cream once or twice before, but only with a spoon, never on a cone. When we entered the store, we walked to the left where the ice cream stand is and ordered our cones. The lady behind the counter scooped a monstrous one for Mia! We walked outside and decided that it would be best to sit on the curb and eat our ice cream in case that huge scoop of vanilla decided to jump out of the cone and into Mia's stroller (that's not something I wanted to clean up). We sat down on the curb and gave Mia her cone, which she had to hold with two hands because it was so heavy. Troy and I started eating our ice cream, but Mia just sat holding the cone and watching us. She didn't know what to do. We tried to show her how to lick the ice cream, but all she could figure out was to touch her tongue to it, so it was quite a slow process. Troy had to "clean up" her cone a few times. In the end, she really enjoyed it and even ate the entire cone!

About a week after our trip to Rite Aid, I had Mia with me in the car and I told her we were going to stop at the store and get a carton of ice cream to take home. She said, "Ice" like she knew what I was talking about. We got out of the car and walked into the store where she immediately tried to take a left (towards the ice cream stand). I told her we were not going that way and convinced her to come to the back of the store with me where the cartons of ice cream were. I got the ice cream and we paid and walked outside. As we were stepping off the curb into the street, Mia stopped and tried to sit down on the curb. She was saying, "Ice" over and over. Can you believe that she remembered from a week before? I was blown away. I've always wondered how much a child could remember, and this was a great example for sure!

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