We had an awesome day on Saturday. Some friends of ours (Cracker's family) are in town and we finally got to meet their new little girl - adorable. Cracker was great with Ellie. He would run around and hide from her. When she found him, she would squeal with delight. It was adorable.
We also went to the children's museum. We didn't notice that they had a younger toddler room until we were about to leave so most of the day was spent with the older kids. Ellie did amazingly well. We had BunBun ready in case of an emergency but to our surprise we never needed her. Ellie was always surrounded by lots of kids. Some were her age, but most of them were older, but she held up to them.
We spent some time in the room where they have a huge ant hill with a cave you can crawl through. Much to my surprise, she went right in! I remember being really scared of things like that so I went in after her. It was a little crowded for me inside, but Ellie loved it. We got in and she was just still, taking in the weird world world around her. Then sudden a huge toddler-sized squirrel came around the corner and growled at Ellie and ran away. I was convinced she would freak out after that, but instead she just looked at me with a "Did you see that, Mom?!? What the hell was that?" look on her face. So brave. Seriously.
Then we went to play with the puppet theater. She loved the puppets so much that she went right up to the curtain to watch them. There was a little boy about Ellie's age there, who thought this was a great idea. Ellie didn't think it was great to share the space with him so she would push him away. After doing this twice, I told her that she wasn't being very nice and that it was ok if he wanted to do the same things she does. She looked at me. Then I asked her if she could give him a hug. She did! And he got the biggest, goofiest grin on his face that I have EVER seen. It was absolutely adorable.
Ellie got pushed down quite a bit from other kids and got her toys taken away sometimes, but the only other time she really had any issue was when a girl wanted to take her wheel barrel. Ellie started squealing and screaming at this little girl for having the nerve to take her stuff. I was on the other side of the room so I couldn't really do anything about it, but by the time I got over to intervene, Ellie had won the argument. She had her precious wheel barrel. However, she was really upset about what it took to get it and had no desire to keep playing.
It was really fascinating for me to watch her interact with the other kids. She was amazing. I could not believe she gave the little boy a hug and stopped pushing him away once I explained things. And I thought it was really heartbreaking to see that she was upset about the fight over the wheel barrel. I think she had a hard time with the fact that she couldn't get her point across without fighting. She didn't want to hurt the other girl's feelings and when she did, she was really upset about it.
I can't help but think that she is an amazing little person. It seems that more and more of her personality is becoming one of kindness towards other people and I love it. And whether or not I owe it to daycare, I am proud of her for being able to interact with the other kids as well as she did. I can not explain how much I am enjoying this little girl at this moment in her life.
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