Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Growing Up and Playgroup Hijinks

We've crossed yet another barrier towards independence.

Today, Alex moved from being buckled into a five-point harness car seat to being in a booster seat with just a regular seatbelt.

He did pretty well with it, although we've been preparing him by buckling the belt over his harness. He seems quite delighted with having a little more wriggle room. He was reaching over to tap the seat beside him, a gesture that delighted Nathan to no end.

Nathan was quite the charmer in the playgroup today. He was actually the oldest child there. The staff brought out some figurines for him to play with and he made some interesting choices. First, he took the big bed and very carefully laid out the Mommy and Daddy dolls on it and then very gently covered them with a blanket. Then he took the two baby dolls and had them running around the dollhouse. I took the Mommy doll and tried to join in the fun.

He took the doll away from me with a sharp "No!" and then very carefully put her back in bed with the Daddy doll. I tried a few more times and after the third or fourth time, he put her back in the bed and then told me "All done." Then the baby dolls took turns running up and down the stairs.

I decided to try another tack and got a little girl doll out of the bin and set her up at the top of the stairs. Immediately, Nathan took the two baby dolls and began knocking the new doll down, pushing her around the various rooms, all the while shrieking at the top of his lungs. Eventually he used the baby dolls to push the little girl doll into the closet and closed the door. One of the staff members who had been watching commented: "You know, if I didn't know you, I'd be seriously worried about what goes on in your house."

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