About a month ago, I wrote about the fact that my daughter is making friends. Since she is cared for at home by my in-laws, she has little exposure to other children, and her circle of friends is limited… I was beginning to worry her social side might be lagging behind.
Well, this weekend we had the opportunity to have all of Pea’s friends over to our place for a play-date. Our friends who have kids all live pretty far away, so we took advantage of the long weekend to get everyone together.
It took about 2 hours for any of my previous fears about her sociality to disappear.
Here’s a brief synopsis of what went down:
- Pea wakes from her nap, to find 8 additional people in our house, that weren’t there before she left — normal, given she is still groggy from her nap.
- Pea clings to either my wife or me for 30 minutes, playing shy in front of the new people — something normal for her, even with family.
- For the next hour Pea cautiously watches her friends play with all of her toys… she clearly wonders where they came from and when they are going to leave her toys alone.
- About 1 hour and 45 minutes in, she realized they aren’t going anywhere and starts to interact with them… cautiously.
- 2 hours in, she’s chasing them around the dining room table. When one throws himself to the floor, the rest of them do too. It was a sight to behold… something I had never seen before.
So, yeah, I’m not worried anymore. In the land of confused and concerned parents, my kid knows exactly what she’s doing.