Making Progress at Playgroup :)

As many of you know, Alli can be painfully shy when she is around other children. She wants so badly to play with them and interact ~ begging to go see friends ~ but once she is around them, she gets nervous and has a tough time interacting. We are working on this a lot and practice saying hi to her friends when we drive or walk by their houses, hoping that it will help her work up the nerve to say it to them when she sees them. Yesterday, we had our monthly neighborhood playgroup at her friend's house across the street. Fortunately, last Monday, when we went to storytime at the library, we ran into this friend and the two of them played together (in their own 2 year old way!) at the park afterwards so all week I was talking up how we would be going to her house on Friday for playgroup. It seemed to help, Alli was very excited yesterday morning and kept asking to go to her friend's house to play! We were the first ones to arrive (I try to get there a little before others to help her get comfortable) and Alli actually spoke up a bit and responded to questions from the other Mommys! This may not sound like much but it is a HUGE improvement! She remembered that this friend had a pink doll with a binky, and if you know Alli, you know how much she LOVES to play babies :) The plan was to let the kids play with Playdoh, which Alli enjoyed for a bit before going back to playing babies. Here is where the day became AWESOME and I was soooooo proud of our peanut . . .

Alli was happily playing with a number of babies and blankets and bottles when another little one, who is not shy, decided she wanted to take some of the babies. Ordinarily, Alli just lets this happen and looks at me like "what just happened?" Not yesterday, she let the other child take most of the dolls and the blanket but when she reached for the special pink doll with the binky, Alli held on pretty tightly. I told her it was okay to say "no, I'm playing with her now." Guess what???? She did!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She even said it more than once! I was bursting with joy that she finally realized it was okay to talk and stand up for herself (politely of course!) I helped the other little one pick out another perfect doll to play with and all was great :)

Okay, so we had a minor meltdown after snack time when an older little girl was playing with the pink doll. I had to remind Alli about taking turns. It took a few hugs and reminders, but Alli did pretty well and even helped the older one take care of the baby by giving her a bottle to give to the doll ~ too cute! That child left a few minutes before we did so Alli was able to give the doll a proper goodbye and snuggle before putting it away. All in all, I would have to say it was a huge success! As we left, Alli even said bye to her friend who hosted and thank you! It was a proud day for Mommy!

I hope for her sake, we can continue to have minor breakthroughs like this so she becomes more comfortable.