Re: bottle play

Eva Ekeblad (eva.ekeblad who-is-at ped.gu.se)
Sat, 17 Feb 1996 17:37:17 +0100

That was a beautiful analysis of the toy feeding-bottle episode, Jay -- I
wish I had the patience to be as thorough.

I am still trying to make some sense of when the activity is 'play' and the
bottle a 'toy' for the kid (and not just for me/ /us)? (I repeat the
episode below.)

I think (as you seem to do) that calling it a meta-activity (a
feeding-like/ /eating-like activity) is right even in the first part of the
episode: I simply think that an 18 month kid can tell a difference between
the sucking, gulping, licking of some thing alive and the way that a Doll
would receive liquid. (Calvin and Hobbes notwithstanding). And whatever is
"real" and "not-real" to them.

So you have partly confirmed what I would have done with the episode if I
had been as explicit with my logics, but also partly made me see things
that I had overlooked -- mostly the fact that little Arne is already
"playing", that is, pursuing an as-if activity, when he is first "feeding"
the doll. As-if the Doll could eat. And as we can see from the way that the
course of events turn out: this as-if-Doll-eats should be very similar to
me-eat -- something should get from the bottle into the mouth. Which, to
the puzzlement of Arne it doesn't.

It WAS a Doll, you know, even though somebody started making it a Bear. I
Noticed something from this exchange of objects: that the important shift
in the meaning of the bottle could be described as from Bottle-wet (which
little Arne supposed it to be although then it turned out _not_ to be -- so
"no" says the toddler)... umm... it's meaning went from Bottle-wet to
Bottle-dry.

What made me notice this was that I (the mummy-in-me) felt vaguely uneasy
about a furry Bear being made sticky with a Bottle-wet, but that with a
plastic Doll a Bottle-wet would be OK. Of course I don't know how "mummied"
in in his orientation little Arne is -- I don't know if it being Doll's
personal little Bottle-wet is what makes him turn to feed-Doll rather than
feed-Arne or feed-Daddy (and then feed-everybody-else). Although when the
Bottle emerges as a Bottle-dry this means, to Arne that it can be used for
feed-People: with Bottle-dry this might be OK and fun. Bottle-dry has some
advantages over Bottle-wet. -- I think there's an interesting shift in
tempo when he goes from one activity to the other: from the andante of
feeding-the-doll, then the pause between "movements" and then the
allegretto of feeding-everybody.

I like your concept of semogenesis for the "bifurcation" of the meaning of
the bottle (and its context). And agree that the moving-out (while
remaining with the bottle, not throwing it away) gives the opportunity for
this emergence...

(Heidegger would have said that the hammer broke, the bottle became
present-at-hand...)

The opportunity for emergence is (I must not forget this) also furnished by
the people around little Arne -- especially, of course, the uptake of his
"invention of a new game" from the first person he approaches (Daddy).

Then again: this is what I get from the narrated episode. I have seen some
of the other videos but not this one, so I may be reading things in the
text that are not in the video. As the change of tempo. And there is no
mention of the Doll being made of plastic either... it could just as well
be a rag doll... (Bang! go my intuitions.)

>"Arne, 18 months, finds a doll's baby bottle filled with 'milk'. He tries
>to feed a doll and puts the bottle to her mouth, but no milk comes out of
>the bottle. Arne raises the doll straight up and tries to feed her this
>way, but still no result. Now he starts looking at and pulling the nipple
>of the bottle. He presses and squeezes the bottle, but still nothing
>happens. Arne says "no" and remains standing where he is with an
>absentminded expression on his face. Suddenly he runs up to his father and
>pretend-feeds him, then he feeds the nurse, then also a little girl who is
>nearby. He goes on to feed everybody present, over and over."

Eva