Friends!

One of my favorite parts about E going to day care is that she gets to socialize with other babies close to her age.  While it is a struggle because she brings home stomach bugs, colds, and just kind of has a constant runny nose, it is so, so worth it.  She is such a social baby.  She LOVES other kids.

At daycare she has two good friends.  She has been friends with one of them since the start.  He's about two months older than her and we'll call him V.  The first time I went to pick E up she and V were laying next to each other on boppy pillows.  I picked E up and V started wailing.  I laid E back down and V smiled and cooed.

V is one of the oldest babies in the young infant room, and he does things a few months ahead of E.  I think this motivates her more than most of the activities I do at home.  She wants to keep up with V.  V started crawling and E was suddenly able to sit up.  V started cruising and E could crawl.  Now I realize some of this is just age, but I will hold to the fact that its also because she wants to be able to keep up with V.

Over the summer E was out of daycare for about a month and V became friends with H.  H is about a month older than E but they are meeting milestones at pretty much the same time now.  So now at day care it's E, V and H and they are the "big kids" in the young infant room.

I took E in later in the afternoon last Friday and right as I arrived daycare was doing their fire drill.  The babies came rolling out the door in their emergency cribs.  H and V riding in the same crib along with a few others.  Since I couldn't go in, and there was no sense in sitting in the car, I walked over to the meeting place with E and stood next to the younger infant crib.   Upon seeing E, V immediately sat up in the crib and reached his hand up to her.  She leaned down over my arm and reached her hand down to him, and gave his hand an attempted pat, pat, pat.

When I brought E in yesterday H and V were playing on the other side of the room.  While I took E into the food prep/storage area to put away her supplies for the day H and V scrambled across the room.  When I came out of the storage area they were sitting, waiting for E.  I put E down and she promptly took a set of teething beads from H and gave them a nibble.  Then V took them from E and gave them a nibble and eventually they ended up back with H. (until baby M, who is 5 days younger than E, and on the periphery of the HEV clique, came up and took them away from all of them)

I love that she has friends.  I love that they make efforts to go see her when she gets there.  Especially now that she's only in daycare for half days.  The connection between H,E,and V is so obvious and so cute.  Of course it makes a tiny part of my brain worry too...I couldn't help but imagine H, E and V as teenagers passing around a knife to become "blood brothers" or worse passing around other substances.  Friends are so awesome, they bring so many many wonderful things.  And they bring germs, and drugs, and problems I see every day in my students.

Friends mean fun, and companionship, and...responsibility on mom and dad's part.  Very soon we will talk to E about washing her hands, covering her cough and not sharing spit to avoid bringing home the germs.   Then a few years down the road we will talk about setting her personal rules and boundaries and not letting any one go past them.  About the dangers of illegal substances.  And yes, even about sex.  E....H and V are the start of a long road full of fun, jokes, tears, laughing so hard your sides hurt, quite comfortable moments and heartache and mom and dad will be there for you through the whole trip.  Even though you might not like it at times.