Toddler friends
Being 2 seems to be the start of having friends. Before N’s been happy to tag around after his old cousins, and vaguely do activities at nursery alongside other children, but it’s great to see him really connecting with other children.
What amazes me is how quickly children get used to being with others. It’s so easy to make friends at their age. It’s also brilliant to see them getting along with other similar age children who they don’t really see frequently.
We have quite a few online mum friends with toddlers the same age as N, and we try to meet up with some of the vaguely local ones a couple of times a year where possible. Even though there’s usually a gap of at least 6 months, they seem to click again really quickly. I don’t know whether it’s us, the mums, talking about the other children and preparing them so they’re ready to re-meet them, or whether there is something in their memory that clicks and makes them remember that they’ve met them before.
Today was brilliant as we went to our local soft play, and met up with another mum and toddler friend. N’s used to the soft play place as he’s been quite a bit and is happy to go wandering around, then dragging me onto the large climbing frame, showing me things as and when they’re important. But it was great to see the two boys getting on and doing things together.
N’s never really that keen on slides, I think because he (still) doesn’t get the hang of sitting up and not banging his head. He’ll enjoy them once he’s discovered he can safely go down them, but it takes a while, and sometimes will cry and refuse to go down them. But with the other toddler getting excited about going up on the toddler area climbing frame and down the slide, that meant N was encouraged and wanted to go with him. They sat together at the top of the slide and the other boy wanted to hold hands as they went down. It was just really sweet, and they loved it. Off the ran again in excitement to go again.
Of course then, other children who’re there decide they want to join in so it gets busier, and is time to move on to some other activity, but it was lovely to see.
They also went across one of the ‘rope bridges’ on the large climbing frame. N usually wants me to help him, but today learnt to do it on his own, so he could show the other toddler how to do it. A bit of reverse leadership after the slide encouragement.
It’s interesting because N seems to immediately play with the toddlers he doesn’t see that often compared to some of the NCT friends we have who he’ll happily play alongside, but not really do things with compared to how some of them play together. We don’t see them as often as we used to, but they’ve grown together seeing each other in local situations and activities so you’d think he’d have started to play together with them more noticeably.
What moments with your child and their friends have made you go ‘ah’?