We always have a hard time knowing what to buy for Caleb for Christmas and his birthday since he can’t verbally tell us what he wants. With Drew, Emma, and Ethan it’s a constant stream of “Oh, mom … come see this commercial! I really want THAT for my birthday!” or the excited chatter from the toy aisle at Wal-mart, “Mom, mom! You gotta come see this cool new toy! Oh, and this one too …” Many times Caleb will open a present, take one look at the toy and then toss it aside and go onto the next one. We can’t tell if he doesn’t like the toy or if he was expecting or wishing for a certain toy so he keeps unwrapping hoping that the next gift he unwraps will be that toy he has dreamt of.
Although Caleb can’t verbally give us ideas for his birthday or Christmas list we have known that there had to be toys on TV or in the stores that he wanted. We knew that he probably had a mental wish list of toys, DVD’s etc. that he wanted to ask for but didn’t know how. The challenge to Dwight and I as parents has been trying to find a way to access this mental wish list and provide ways for Caleb to tell us what toys he would like to have.
Caleb has always liked computers and recently has been fascinated with watching clips of Mickey Mouse, Rolie Polie Olie and Spongebob on the internet. He found YouTube with the help of his older brother, Drew, and he was in heaven. He then started using the Google search and looking up his favorite characters to watch videos, see photos of the DVD jackets and his favorite thing … reading the credits (he loves to read the credits and see who the producer, editor, director, etc. for that particular episode is).
One day when I logged onto Amazon I was looking at the “recently viewed” items on my account and noticed all these DVD’s of Winnie the Pooh, Mickey Mouse, and Spongebob. I realized that since Caleb had been using my computer to “surf the net” he was logged in under my account in Amazon. I went to YouTube and saw similar video clips. All of the sudden it hit me that I could tell what videos and movies that Caleb liked best and use this information to find presents that he would like.
I also noticed that he really enjoyed watching this clip of an animated Mr. Potato Head and he even showed it to me one time and kept rewinding and watching it over and over and laughing hysterically. I had to admit this Mr. Potato Head was pretty cool and since he seemed to like watching the video I thought he might like it for his upcoming birthday so I went ahead and ordered it along with a few of the videos he had recently viewed on Amazon.
When Caleb opened the DVD’s of Winnie the Pooh, Mickey Mouse and Spongebob he was excited and started to run off with them to put them in his DVD player. “Wait, Caleb … you still have another present to open” we said as we handed him the wrapped Mr. Potato Head. He took the gift and slowly tore one strip of the wrapping paper. He saw the writing on the box and realized what was inside and his face lit up. He quickly tore the rest of the wrapping paper off and looked up at Dwight and I was a huge grin on his face and his blue eyes were dancing with excitement. Caleb’s birthday wish had come true and he had gotten the gift he had dreamed of. “Happy Birthday Caleb !” we all said as we helped him take Mr. Potato Head out of box.
Here is a video clip of Caleb playing with his new toy :
Caleb's Voice 