You've Got A Friend In Me

The only way to have a friend is to be one.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

When I took my daughter to daycare this morning, we walked in as usual, and I set her down on the ground to walk by herself. She's heavy. I'll carry her through the parking lot because, well, even though everyone driving up either works at the center or is dropping off their child, no one feels the need to slow down.

Anyway, we got inside, I set her down and as I was readjusting the diaper bag on my shoulder, she took off for the water fountain. The daycare has two water fountains side by side. One is designed for younger children and is at their level. I think some evil, cruel person decided to do this to torture parents by evoking temper tantrums in their children when the parent drags the child away. My daughter isn't tall enough to get a drink yet (thank goodness because that's a water-soaked shirt waiting to happen), but she does like to push the button and watch the water squirt out. For minutes on end. Now, as tempting as it may be to punish the cruel person who created this design by running up their water bill, we usually try to bypass the water fountain by focusing on the aquarium a little farther down the hall.

The center has a big salt-water aquarium full of very colorful fish. They have Marlin, Nemo, and Dory. They have a starfish and some sort of crab. I really think they were going for the Finding Nemo look. My daughter has a fun time watching them swim (and so do other children judging by the number of fingerprints on the glass).

So, this morning, as I steered her toward the fish aquarium using the diaper bag to shield her from the water fountain, she saw one of her classmates. He had arrived earlier and was walking down the hall with their teacher. The little boy recognized my daughter and started squealing and jumping up and down. My daughter, recognizing him, said, "Hi!" and started running down the hall. That worked well because it saved me the trouble of prying her away from the fish aquarium.

I knew we were getting close to the age where social interaction was going to be more important, and I'm glad to see that my daughter is making friends. Not that I ever really had any doubt. She is quite the little extrovert which is surprising because my husband and I are not. We are social with the groups of friends that we have, but we aren't the kind of people who are comfortable starting up a conversation with a complete stranger. Our daughter, on the other hand, will say hi to a stranger in the store or bye-bye to any car she sees leaving. Unlike a lot of kids her age, when a little old lady in line behind us at Walmart smiles and says something like, "Well, aren't you a cutie?" she just smiles and starts jabbering. No bashfulness or shyness in my child.