Sunday 8 May 2011

Making friends

Shhhh, I'm just going to say this really quickly and really quietly in the hope that some unseen force doesn't notice and then jinx it. I'm really loving Callum right now!

Don't get me wrong, he still has plenty of moments.

Take one day last week, for example. He did the dreaded thing of falling asleep in the car on the way home from nursery. When I got home, I woke him up and brought him in and he was not best pleased to put it mildly. He had a wee hissy fit then fell asleep on the sofa. By now it was about 6pm or close to. This was very bad news because it meant I could be in a world of trouble when it came to putting him to bed but my online food shop was due any moment (between 6 and 7pm). I could not deal with another mamoth trantrum if the shopping arrived. Its a shame, as he normally helps me with the shopping - with an alternative motive of snooping through to see what he can eat.

Eventually, the shopping came so I dumped the bags in the kitchen and then went to wake the monkey (now about 6.30pm). Yes, a meltdown did ensue. I decided the easiest thing was to try to get him into bed. The scene = Callum having a crazy fit on the floor. It really did look like a fit. I actually considered recording it to show to people to see if it was normal behaviour. He laid on his bedroom floor and would roll over back and forth bashing himself into his toy box again and again while crying. I tried to lay him on the bed as it was softer. He would hit and kick then want a cuddle but would hit and kick me again and pull my hair torn between wanting to be held and wanting to get away. I eventually got him to calm but it took a while and some considerable patience - which is particularly difficult when I have been training all day, am knackered and acutely aware that the shopping is still spread all over the kitchen floor.

Anyway, when he isn't being overtired I love him to pieces.

I think it is partly to do with him talking more now and stringing a few words together in a sentence and also to do with him starting to get more confident too.

He is starting to make friends now when we go somewhere where there are other little people. Stuart and I went to a local pub garden recently to meet with some friends. There were a number of other families there too. Callum took himself off to make friends with a child in an orange t-shirt that was playing nearby. It was lovely. But then the little boy had nipped back to his table to get a drink and Callum couldn't find him. He saw another little boy with an orange top on and thought it was the same friend. He saw him and a couple of other children that were all part of the same party standing on a slope waving at their parents. Callum went up there and joined in with them clearly having absolutely no idea why he was waving. Bless him. I had to go and show him where the previous boy was.

Later on, after both orange t-shirt boys had gone he even got himself a girlfriend that wanted to hold his hand!

After that, I took him to soft play and as soon as we got in there he made a friend. The funny thing was that the little boy kept calling Callum Ben. Our friends' oldest little boy (he is 5) who Callum has developed an obsession for (wants to copy everything he does, follows him around and talks about him lots) is called Ben. I can only assume that Callum had started calling the other boy Ben or saying the name and there was some kind of confusion.

I was starting to worry about how shy he was and whether he would easily make friends with other children - the last week or two has certainly been reassuring.