Elise and Maya
Playing ball
Clapping together, so cute!
Elise now thoroughly enjoys the company of other babies and kids. She visited with her little friends Maya and Max about a week ago and had a wonderful time. She laughed, smiled and was kept fully intrigued and entertained by Maya.
She also recently experienced her first large group play time when we took her to the mall and let her roam free with the other kids in the play area. It was fun to watch her reaction. When we first put her down to play, many of the kids ran up to her smiling and a few of them got down on their hands and knees to crawl around like she did. She froze for a minute turned and looked at us, then back at the kids, then us, then back at the kids again and repeated the process over and over. Initially, she gave the distinct look of stranger anxiety, there were a few times when we were sure she was going to cry, but thankfully she didn't. She really wasn’t sure what to think and after a few minutes she came crawling back to us.
The entire time we were watching her, we couldn’t help but think of those nature show narrations. It would have gone something like, “Mother and father release the baby into the wild. The baby, not sure how to react, freezes and looks to its parents for guidance. The baby studies the new subjects, who share her general appearance yet vary greatly in size and behavior, and in the end decides to seek comfort by crawling back to the feet of its parents. The baby survived, albeit a bit wary of her surroundings, but ultimately more prepared if, in the future, a similar situation should present itself”.
