Thursday, December 14, 2006
at his childcare centre there is a cook, who is a lovely woman, originally from Vietnam, who makes delicious and healthy food for all the kids and is one of the reasons I love the place - I know she feeds A better than I do. she has two daughters, and the older one, C, sometimes comes to the centre during school holidays; she's in late primary school. On Tuesday I went to pick A up and he had a new toy. I said "that's not yours" and one of the staff told me that C had brought it in for him. On Wednesday I bought a small reciprocal gift, which I will take in on Friday. The cook was at the childcare christmas party yesterday, and I discovered, talking to her and C, that C tries to time her visits to see A; watched her and her little sister play with him for half an hour; and that C had only, spontaneously, wanted to get gifts for A and the little friend of his who's just moved away. There are like 50-60 kids there over the course of a week. and it's my boy who has earned this girl's love. I don't expect anyone else to care, but something about that makes me very happy and hopeful for his future.
and on a related but sourer note: there is one kid who is supposed to be A's friend, but whose mother has always pretty much snubbed me when I say hello in the street or playground. at the party I watched said kid push A over - a full-on, double-palmed straight-armed, premeditated shove, too. A burst into floods of tears; I picked him up (I'm not supposed to lift him, but I had to), went to the kid and gently said: "Can you please apologise to A, R?" He said sorry, but there is glint of nastiness in that kid's eye. meanwhile, his mother was swilling champagne and looking in the other direction. The incident took a full five minutes and she didn't look her kid's way in all that time. so my mind is made up about that lot, I think. someone from my mother's group tried to downplay the incident when I got back to the picnic, still incensed, but I've never seen or heard of A doing such a thing. cruelty just isn't part of his makeup. he was the second last kid to get his gift from Santa and at a time of night when he'd normally be very ratty and due for bed, he sat at Santa's feet (a female Santa, too!) and waited with big round eyes for 25 minutes.
Of course he can be a typical 3-year-old; this afternoon he fell asleep on the way from an unavoidably overlong market excurision and when I woke him (it was 35 degrees outside and couldn't leave him in the car) he screamed and wailed and shouted for ten minutes, until I got his attention with some ice and a blender and chocolate milk. but that and the odd overnight wakeup are as bad as it gets with him. why wouldn't I want another one?
and on a related but sourer note: there is one kid who is supposed to be A's friend, but whose mother has always pretty much snubbed me when I say hello in the street or playground. at the party I watched said kid push A over - a full-on, double-palmed straight-armed, premeditated shove, too. A burst into floods of tears; I picked him up (I'm not supposed to lift him, but I had to), went to the kid and gently said: "Can you please apologise to A, R?" He said sorry, but there is glint of nastiness in that kid's eye. meanwhile, his mother was swilling champagne and looking in the other direction. The incident took a full five minutes and she didn't look her kid's way in all that time. so my mind is made up about that lot, I think. someone from my mother's group tried to downplay the incident when I got back to the picnic, still incensed, but I've never seen or heard of A doing such a thing. cruelty just isn't part of his makeup. he was the second last kid to get his gift from Santa and at a time of night when he'd normally be very ratty and due for bed, he sat at Santa's feet (a female Santa, too!) and waited with big round eyes for 25 minutes.
Of course he can be a typical 3-year-old; this afternoon he fell asleep on the way from an unavoidably overlong market excurision and when I woke him (it was 35 degrees outside and couldn't leave him in the car) he screamed and wailed and shouted for ten minutes, until I got his attention with some ice and a blender and chocolate milk. but that and the odd overnight wakeup are as bad as it gets with him. why wouldn't I want another one?
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