As we all know, Daniel LOVES the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Daniel's attention span now includes the whole episode and he even has favorite episodes. It sounds bad, but we've actually had to start limiting how many times a day we watch Mickey Mouse. (We weren't really watching it THAT much, but between Ben and I, we got to the point where neither of us really knew when the other had watched it with Daniel, so we've mostly just started trying to keep track better and tell each other.) But really, watching the show has done amazing things for Daniel. He really IS learning so much from the show, he remembers and comprehends a TON, and he is so interactive with the show that really, it's been a positive thing around here.
The other day, we watched an episode where Donald Duck has lost his favorite toy lion. I knew Daniel would really relate to this one- he LOVES his own lion that he sleeps with. The lion follows us around all day long. Anyway, in the episode, Donald looks in three places for the lion and as always on the show, there are problems to solve. This particular episode was very sequential. After watching the episode only twice, Daniel was able to reenact almost the entire episode!! I was really impressed! Talk about good memory, and the influence of TV!! Good thing it's just Mickey Mouse and it's educational.
Daniel just started pretending to use a blanket to swim in to look for Daisy Duck's sunglasses, which was the first part of the episode. This was very clear and obvious to us. Then, he started saying something neither Ben nor I really understood. He was talking to Ben and trying to get Ben to help him with whatever it was he was saying. Finally, he said "ooh ooh ahh ahh" and put his monkey in the kitchen and then he finally also added "sandbox" and it was then I realized he was reenacting the third part of the episode where they go sandsurfing with Goofy and find Pete's monkey. Something funny happened then; Daniel quickly realized I was the one who understood him and he abandoned Daddy in the kitchen, ran to me, grabbed my hand and he said "mommy come"- basically it was "forget you Daddy"! I had to laugh! Daniel had me using the blanket to sandsurf (I didn't really, we just pretended!) and we found the monkey and then he said we had to "find Pete", because the monkey was Pete's and Pete had our lion. Daddy joined back in the game as Pete and we hunted for Pete all the way upstairs to bed!
Daniel started right back up the next morning reenacting the whole episode all over again. Of course, we've since watched the episode several times! My dad babysat Daniel on Friday night, and when we got home, he told us that Daniel stood on his little footstool at one point and said "tall". This was new. Daniel knows he can use the footstool to "reach", but for him to say "tall" was great! He learned this from that episode.
So, good things come from watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse around here! Daniel's favorite characters are Goofy and Donald Duck. If an episode features those two characters specifically, you can bet we'll be watching those several times. In the picture below, Daniel evolved his reenactment of the lion episode and just started playing with Daisy Duck. He took her shopping and he fed her. In the picture below, he is sitting next to Daisy Duck and he is feeding her. So cute!
Anyway, I had to tell this story, more for me perhaps, because this episode reenactment was just so impressive to us. We couldn't believe how complicated Daniel's pretending had gotten and how much he remembered in a short time! Hope you enjoyed imagining Daniel's playing!
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