The Pause Button

Benjamin saw a small excerpt of a show on Noggin after an episode of Diego. It was sort of like a commercial but just promoting this new show that was coming on. I wish I knew the name of this short, but the premise was about two crazy guys and one of them had a pretend remote control that he could control the other guy with. Benjamin found this wildly funny. He found the funniest part to be when the one guy is paused with extraordinary faces or crazy positions. From that point on, pause is now a vocabulary word and a new favorite interest. It may almost be an obsession. Everything now can not be turned off, just paused. Stephen taught Benjamin that our tv really does have a pause button, and that was greatest thing that he ever learned. "These two lines mean pause, Mom." That is all that I hear. Last Friday night when the babysitter was here, Benjamin figured out how to pause the movie he was watching. He thought he was so smart and the babysitter reported that all he wanted to do was pause and unpause the movie. He even clicks his own pretend remote to "pause" what he is playing with if it is nap time. If other children are doing things that he doesn't like, he pushes his own pause button making the sound "chic-ket" as it is pushed to make them stop. I passed by Nursery once to look in the window and saw this scene play out. A little boy came up to Benjamin and hit to try and take his toy. Benjamin held on tightly and pushed his "button" to pause him. He also tries to pause cars in the parking lot if he feels they are getting to close to us. Pause - - Who knew that could be so important to a two year old? The more that I have analyzed this pause fascination, the more it makes sense to me. Pause means control, and when you are two you are all about wanting to be in control of your own world. I do try to give many choices to let him be in control but pause to him just seems like the ultimate in making his own decisions. Even Mom at times wishes that Benjamin did have his own pause button. Then again, I would probably wish for the same thing. I could get a two year old to stay in the cart during shopping trips with my pause button. But my first priority would be to press pause on the big hugs and short cuddle times that are becoming more and more infrequent as he gets older. Pause =