I have always tried to get my little girl out and about. We have been going to the story and rhyme time at the library since she was six months old or so and the parent and toddler sessions at our local baths since she was fourteen months, but today was the first time I have taken her to a toddler play group.
It was like feeding time at a chimpanzee santuary.
After taking her to the big park recently, which we do when the weather permits (bearing in ming this summer I have been more likely to get trench foot than a tan) I am becoming more and more aware that she is intimidated by gangs of other children particularly when they are crowding in on her to get a turn at the slide, or to climb the rigging on the fort. She has become so used to adult company, me and Steve, Grandma and 'little' Grandad, Nana and 'big' Grandad etc. that I think she was confused by the behaviour of other children.
Time to resolve this before she starts nursery next year.
Don't get me wrong, my daughter is no shrinking violet. Tall for her twenty-eight months, with the vocabularly of a four year old she is the only two and a half year old I know who understands such words such as 'conversation' and 'remarkable' and can count to twelve in English and eight in Spanish (blame Dora) but I think it is time for her to gain some social nouse. Hence the trip to the playgroup.
Bit of an eye opener.
Firstly, that this group has been going for a long time and I have only just tracked it down. Secondly that some folk see it as an excuse to have a coffee and gossip about their next/last holiday while other mams keep and eye on their kids. Thirdly, that sixteen kids between the ages of six months and four years could make that much noise.
It was like Beruit.
Being a big kid myself, and to ease my daughter into it gently, I was on the floor arm deep in toys, pulling things out and getting right in the thick of it. Once or twice a plastic teapot sailed passed my ear. Once a moulded plastic courgette pinged off the back of my head. If I could have fit I think I should have taken shelter in the wendy house. The soft play area was no man's land with three of the older kids waging world war three in there that was only interupted by an occasional angry mother dragging a casuality out by the arm.
Then everything halted for juice, coffee and biscuits.
I would have rather have had a gin and tonic and a temazepam but you take what you can get in a warzone. The children gathered around small tables and were given juice cups and biscuits. The mothers sat around the edges with coffees. My little girl decided she wanted to sit on an adult chair with me and dip her biscuit in my coffee. Can't blame her for choosing the officer's mess rather than the grunts chow line.
At one point a little girl of unknown parentage came up to me with a book. I asked if she wanted to read it and she nodded shyly. My little girl, who loves stories and has to be dragged out of our library with the promise of an icecream, came over too and I read them the story. The little girl smiled at me when I had finished and immediately went for anther one. By the end a little boy had appeared and squeezed himself onto my lap too.
There were only a few tears from my little princess. Little girls tipping her dollies out of the prams, little boys taking up residence in the crawl tunnel so she couldn't get through but overall she enjoyed herself and asked if she could come again. She was the only one to say thank you for her juice and biscuit.
Now if mammy can get her tranq prescription filled, we're good to go . . .
