Popular and Caring

My kid is popular!

We have three play dates over the next week.

On Sunday, we are meeting with a boy she plays with at school. On Tue, we have an after-school play date of cycling and dinner with my Mom friend and her two girls who also go to the same school. They came with us on our road trip last month. Next weekend we have a play date with another Mom and her daughter. Beanie does not play with that girl in school, but I like the Mom so we are doing a play date, or you can call it Mom date with kids :-)  I also need to plan another play date with a 4 year old who adores Beanie.

I live in a very family oriented city. There are no single people here, only families with kids. Before Beanie, I was unable to make friends, for years!  Now thanks to her I am expanding my social circle and I have to admit I really like the other Moms.  There are 3 ladies I am quite friendly with now.  We have had some play dates. All three are professional working women so we have that in common. The lady I am meeting next Sunday is someone I like and I would like to get to know her more. Another one (5th) I have exchanged contact information with and we will meet up. Her professional background is almost exactly like mine, so I am looking forward to getting to know her.  Her daughter is the one mentioned below.  Luckily, all the kids love Beanie so it easy to get play dates!

A couple of weeks ago we had her parent-teacher conference. It went very well!!

Beanie's teachers love her. They say she is a model student - well behaved, popular, likes doing the Montessori work, is talkative, helpful and very sweet. They are impressed with her language skills and vocabulary. At 3 yrs old, she routinely uses words like "investigate", "ruined" "options", comfortable",  "actually" etc. Partly its because I talk like that. I tend to forget she is a kid, so I find myself telling her "okay, so you have two options...". I suppose "choices" would be more age appropriate, but its hard for me to remember to talk like that.  My Mom always makes fun of me when I say things like "I am contemplating what to make for dinner" - lol.

Her teachers also told me how much her classmates like her. I see that myself as whenever she enters the class, 3-4 kids come right up to the door calling her name.

But the BEST part was them telling me just how empathetic my sweet girl is.

There is a girl in Beanie's class, cute as a button, who I thought was about 2 years old, but she is actually 3 years. This child is non-verbal, tends to wander around and run off in the playground and not sit still in class. Beanie has taken this girl under her wing. I know of this from what Beanie tells me at home, but it was so inspiring hearing it from the teachers.

They said this child came with a lot of walls (was very withdrawn) but Beanie has slowly broken down those walls. Beanie helps her with her shoes and jacket. Holds her hand when they go down the path to the playground. Keeps an eye on her in the playground. They even sent me a picture of them sitting in circle time and Beanie holding her hand since that kid does not sit still and it helped her stay calm. The teachers also told me that for a long time most of the other kids stayed away from this girl, but seeing how Beanie goes out of her way to help this child and play with her, they are beginning to interact with her, too. The kids are taking their lead from Beanie.

Both the director of the school and Beanie's teacher were getting teary-eyed telling me all this. They said they have never seen a child be so empathetic and caring to another as Beanie.

I was blown away!

Beanie is an only child. She is not around other kids or younger kids and therefore, is not accustomed to taking care of someone like a younger sibling.  So, all this innate kindness, deep empathy and caring is coming from within herself. Its all HER - her personality and nature! 

I am so impressed with my baby.

Here is  a picture of Beanie (purple shirt) holding the little girl's hand during circle time. The teacher sent me this pic and titled it "Caring!".

The little girl's Mom was telling me that whenever she mentions Beanie's name to her daughter at home, her face lights up.

We did class pictures and when we were looking at them, Beanie asked me to order her a pic of this girl so we could put it on our fridge - lol.  During Open House, I asked her teacher of she could take a pic of the two of them and the teacher showed me the one below she had taken a few weeks earlier.

Awwwww!!!