Buddies

Samantha is a strong, independent little girl, who loves to “read” her flashcards, build towers with blocks, make the entire 7-person Loving Family sit down around the table in her doll house to eat breakfast (pizza and cupcakes for breakfast – yum!), have long conversations between her stuffed animals as they go for walks around her room or get tucked into her bed, blankets pulled up under their chins, watch Max & Ruby or Kai-lan, and “feed” oversized Tigger & Pooh dolls from the basket of food in her toy kitchen. She can sit for ages reading her books (well, re-telling them in new ways, based on the pictures, or her memory of what someone has read to her before), stacking them neatly one on top of the other until the book basket is empty. She’s started to get into the concept of “dress up,” wearing her pink organza tutu around the house over her pants. Sometimes she’ll ask to wear one of her princess dresses.

I love the idea that she’s with other children while she’s at school every day, both to continue to learn appropriate social interaction as well as to keep her more active. But the Great Snow of 2010 made me nervous. While Sammi probably didn’t mind one bit that she was cooped up in the house for nearly three weeks, I worried that the break would make the transition back to school more difficult, and that she would become too sedentary, or dismissive of anything to do with other children when the time came to reintegrate her into the classroom. Of course, I knew that was silly. She’s very flexible, really. My nervousness was most likely just me worrying that she would get bored of us and that we wouldn’t be able to stimulate her the way the class environment does. I’m willing to bet that any wind that blew last Monday was the release of the collective sighs of relief from tens of thousands of parents in the DC metro area, that their children were going back to school.

At their last home visit, Samantha’s teachers said that Sammi tends to play independently of the other children. She’ll play next to them, but not really with them (of course, about 80% of the class is comprised of boys, so who could blame her?). Except there is one little girl that she does play with. We had that little girl over this weekend for a playdate, and I was so excited to see the level of interaction between the two of them! Samantha was the perfect hostess, giving her a hug when she arrived, then grabbing her by the hand and towing her along into the living room to her doll house, saying, “Come on! Let’s play!” And play together they did. For an hour and a half of sharing, helping, and having fun. It was a beautiful, beautiful sight, and one I hope to see repeated again one day soon.