Observation 1: [pic] Jacklyn Coleman Cd: 10G (the early years) Section 1:) Setting: This observation is taking place at the child’s home, more specifically, in Santa Clara California, and in the Living room, of their two bedrooms, and 1 bathroom home. They currently live in a transitional housing program for teenage mothers run by Wilson center. Describing the child: Dariyana Marie is a 21 month old female toddler. She has brown hair, brown eyes, and very curly and short hair reaching only to about 2 inches above the top of her head.
She is pigeon toed and she has trouble walking, but she is not bothered by it at all. The mother however is concerned. She is walking and talking quite a lot for her age. She is saying ‘I love you’, ‘hi’ and ‘bye’ very clearly. She is about 25 pounds and 41 inches tall, and she appears as a healthy little girl. It is Tuesday July 6th of 2010, and it is currently 6:40 pm. The current season is summertime, and this Observation should be ending at around 7: 30pm. The toddler’s name, as mentioned above, is Dariyana.
She is around 19 months old, is walking, talking, and attempting to sing. The Physical setting at the child’s home in the living room, includes creativity all around the room, wall art, very few family photos, a very stained couch, a coffee table with cushions surrounding the edges, for safety, a computer table but a computer that does not work, a recliner chair, a big TV, a bookshelf filled with books, lots of them baby books, two shelves of Cd’s, a coat rack, or a jacket holder thingy as her 17 year old roommate is calling it, and a small movie shelfwith only few movies on it.
The Baby things around the room consist of as follows: there is a baby bouncer, a baby swing, a playpen, a baby changing table, (although that isn’t for Dariyana. She is not the only baby in the house), and a diaper genie. It isn’t very homey or family oriented, however, there is a 10 gallon water jug that is being saved for Dariyana’s college fund in the corner of the living room. There is quite bit of Dirtiness around the house. The dirty part of the setting: There is food lying around everywhere. The doors are wide open and bugs are coming in, and flies are flying around.
There is also dirty music videos’ playing on the television, showing nakedness, cursing, and ignorance. There are dirty cups, and soda cans sitting on the coffee table and a dirty roommate. There aren’t many toys present, and the very few toys that are in the visible area are noisy, have bright lights and high pitched voices. Due to the fact that this observation is being done in the child’s home, there aren’t any other children that are around to be observed except one. Briana’s roommate, Coralyn and her newborn baby Javeah-Starr.
She is a 2 month old infant, but there isn’t very much that I have observed considering she really doesn’t do much, but coo, cry, poop, and spit. Family background and the number of adults who are present in Dariyana’s life: The father Darius, is African American, and Age 21. The Mom, Briana is Mexican, and African American. Dariyana is Briana’s first baby. The couple has been split up since Dariyana was born. The father is mildly involved but the mother has said several times over phone conversations, that she doesn’t really want him around.
She says that he is a bad influence and drops in and out of Dariyana’s life whenever he pleases. There is a 1:1 ratio for the toddler, due to the fact that only the mother is the only parent that is seriously involved, but there are many adults involved in the baby’s life such as Aunts, cousins, uncles, two grandmas, and two grandpas, many family friends, and few neighbors. Coming from the African American heritage and background, Briana states that she is determined to keep Dariyana looking as clean, neat and presentable as possible at all times to avoid stereotypes.
Due to Dariyana’s unmanageable hair, Briana spends a little bit more money than necessary to keep Dariyana’s hair looking nice, and keeping it manageable. Being that there is also no male role models in Dariyana’s life for her to go by, her mother remains concerned for how she will get the male nurturing that she needs. Section 2:) The running observation For the past 20 minutes or so, she has been screaming ‘ayayayayayayayayayah’ every few minutes or so. The best guess as to why she is doing this would be to assume that she is having a good time, or trying to sing. She giggles a lot, and is amused by everything, and anything.
She hasn’t been playing with anything specific, except for maybe the television remote. She has picked it up and walked to the middle of the television screen and pointed the remote backwards, and started to push buttons. The mother and the roommate were getting frustrated. When Briana shouted ‘Daughter! ”, Dariyana quickly dropped the remote and wobbled over to her mom. Dariyana currently looks very scared for her life. She looks as though she knows that she is in trouble. Whether or not Dariyana knows that standing in front of the TV is wrong or not, cannot be stated.
After she was reprimanded by her mother, she did not return to do it again. I have observed that Dariyana is extremely interested in cell phones. Whenever one of the members of the house takes their cell phone away from her, she sets off in search for another one with intense curiosity in her eyes. Maybe the remote control isn’t as colorful or bright, but regardless, children experiment much too much at this age fore me to leave my cell phone in her plain sight. So far, Dariyana has found 3 cell phones and has gotten them taken away from her.
She is now walking towards baby Javeah who is in her little vibrating baby bouncer. She wobbles over to Javeah as close as she can and now she is kneeling down in front her. “Babayah”, she yelled. We are all assuming that to mean baby Javeah. “Don’t you hit her!! ” Coralyn shouted. Coralyn just told me that that is what usually happens. So lately, they have been trying to prevent it from happening. Dariyana isn’t doing much besides poking the baby, and stroking her hair. She is hugging her, and babbling to her and baby Javeah seems completely interested as she watches Dariyana with intense focus.
Body movements and facial expressions: From what I have observed so far, this child is not a crier. She almost always has a smile on her face and is giggling at a constant. She is finding ordinary items from around the house and using them as toys due to her own lack of toys. She appears wide awake, and her mom mentioned that she hasn’t napped since her roommates’ daughter Javeah was born two months ago. She used to sleep on her roommates chest while she was pregnant, but now that the belly is gone, the desire to nap is gone as well.
She wobbles when she walks with her feet pointed inwards towards each other and she is used to it. She hasn’t fallen not once. From this observation alone, the fact that she is very intelligent is very easily seen. When her mother says her name, whether it is with an angry tone, or not, Dariyana responds. When Briana shouts “daughter” Dariyana knows this to mean that she has done something wrong. When adults are talking in the house, Dariyana doesn’t seem to be interested. She just continues to play and goes about her business. At the moment, Dariyana is playing with the neighbors’ dog, which just came over.
The houses monitor it speaking with the resident’s, and Dariyana is trying to get the dog to follow her, and she is getting irritated that the dog is only interested in finding food. I could see Dariyana’s frustration as she continually tries to get the dog to play with her. She has tried grabbing her leash and pulling, but she gets knocked down, yet she never gave up. Right now, as Briana is arguing with the house monitor, they are getting loud. Dariyana is covering her ears and babbling loudly as well, mimicking the adults without having to hear it herself.
She is using the moment as an outlet for fun, but also, she is irritated with the loud noise. It can be very clearly seen that Dariyana gets her sassiness and attitude from her momma. Conclusion: Personal thoughts Overall, Dariyana Marie is an adorable ‘almost’ two year old little girl. She seems as though she knows how to handle difficult situations, she listens to her mama, she knows how to have fun, and she is a very happy baby. I think that her mother has done a successful job with Dariyana, not to mention, I love her name. She is extremely intelligent for her age, and I think that she is growing up very well.
From my understanding, it takes a lot of work and patience to care for a baby, and it may be very difficult, but at the same time, it brings great joy. Just observing Dariyana for 45 minutes was enjoyable for me, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. I gained some knowledge from this experience myself. I was able to notice why Dariyana was so interested in cell phones. Colors, noise, buttons, and pictures! What is not to love I guess right? This observation of a day in the life of Dariyana Marie was very informative and it sure taught me that babies are not easy!
