Monday

Julia had a lovely time with her therapists -- why not, they let her initiate activities and then play with her. The suggest things like going for a walk to look for dead fish and playing with bubbles. If the neighborhood parents are watching they are going to want to sign their kids up for this program.


Julia ended the day exhausted and very quickly fell asleep. That happened last year when she started camp as well. Nice for her to get enough physical stimulation. Nice for her to be able to sit quietly for dinner and be ready at bedtime. But it is an awful lot of activity to make that child exhausted.


A few things from today:


Our pool has a sand pit that before last week, I thought was for kids much younger than Julia. At least, that is what it is billed as. However, last week she went with the girl that she met to the sand pit and played for a long time. There were plenty of kids her age and a bit younger there, and she was not at all out of place. Today, Julia swam for awhile and then wanted to play in the sand pit. We didn't bring any sand toys but she was able to use a bucket that was there and she was willing to share the bucket when another kid asked.


There was a little boy, 2-3, who seemed to follow Julia around from puddle to puddle. He stood right in the puddle that Julia was creating. he stamped until all the water was gone. Julia stood away from the boy and I could tell she was getting angry but she did not do anything to the boy. Later, I called her to come over to me and told her how proud of her I was. She went back and played with the little boy like a big girl playing with a younger child. It was so interesting. She told him that she was making a volcano and that lava was going to come down. She engaged him in building the volcano and talked to him. Unfortunately, the boys father looking for his daughter, scooped the boy up. I was sorry to see him go. I wonder how long she could have kept it up.

Being at the pool often is also yielding more playmates. Most of the time, Julia jumps and swims with these little girls (they all seem to be little girls. Julia doesn't care but I think that we are getting to that age of single gender play.). Sometimes for a short time, sometimes longer. One girl hoped to see her again as we left. Another left Julia when a better friend came along or maybe it was a girl who was more interested in talking than bouncing around the water. Julia continues. Her spirit is indomitable.

While Julia was in the sand pit, three boys came over and recognized her from school. None of these three were in her class but all knew the chasing Julia "game." The called her Julia dinosaur and wanted her to chase them. She looked up at them, growled at them, and then looked at me. I shook my head no, and she went back to playing in the sand. The boys ran off, making fun of her as they ran. When they gathered again, I went over to them and told them I didn't want to see them teasing Julia again. One of them immediately looked up and said he did not tease her. I said I watched him and it was mean. I didn't want it happening again. Then I told them to have fun and walked away.

When Seth, Julia's classmate, told his mother about the "game" it was clear to me that Seth was uncomfortable. I wondered about that because there were plenty of times this last year when Julia was mean to Seth -- hit him, pushed him. I wondered about his uncomfortabily. Now, I imagine that I understand. Seth and Aaron and maybe another boy or so from Julia's class played the chasing Julia game. It was not nice but probably not mean-spirited. These kids I met at the sandpit were mean. They were little thugs. I imagine that when they joined the game, Seth started feeling uncomfortable.

Maybe I am nuts.