Playgroup and Social Skills

Recently, Court and some other girls in the "hood" have been getting together with their kids for playgroup. It's been a good thing for Addie, since she is the only child and no one else to play with, she gets a chance to share toys and interact with other kids her own age.

Lately Addie's been really getting into it (playgroup), so much that she even wanted to go back to playgroup instead of saying "hi" to grandma, who just happened to be in the area. She loves her friend, Lily, and surprisingly after their rocky start when Addie made her cry at Cafe Rio, Lily loves Addie, too. Good thing because we were afraid that Addie would become the child that no one wants to play with, but I think that she's turning things around.

Despite all of the "social" practice she's been getting at playgroup -- sharing toys, playing with action figures and boy toys -- there is some fine tuning that needs to take place. Here's an example of why we think so.

Yesterday, with some of Court's friends and their kids over at the house, Addie reverted to her bullying ways. While the girls were paying another girl for lunch, Court just happened to look up to see how Addie was, and noticed that she was sitting a little higher off the ground. Beneath Addie was her friend's seven-month old baby, Andrew, who must have fallen on his side and Addie seized the opportunity to use him as a bench.

Trying to be the responsible adult and telling Addie that she can't sit on the baby, Courtney instead was laughing uncontrollably, and when she went to remove her, Addie looked up with a smile on her face and said, "Hi!". In the meantime, Andrew lay there unable to do anything and staring up with a confused look on his face.

We're not sure why she decided to do this, but hope it isn't sign of things to come.