I realize that what I write in retrospect about events is so much more basic than the narrative that runs in my head as things are actually happening, or immediately afterwards. And that is a shame. Sometimes it is nice to capture the actual rich texture, complete with minor details, even if it means posting without pictures, or writing about the minute elements of life.
And so it was with this week's playgroup. The MOMs Club that I am in is VERY active. They have an event nearly every day of the week, including weekly playgroups that meet based on birth year (so we're in the 2009 group). This week the playgroup was hosted by Katie, mama to Rowan who was also born in January of 2009. We haven't seen Katie and Rowan for months, so it was a reunion of sorts for the boys, who suddenly found themselves much more in possession of little personalities and better able to move around than last time. And suddenly they were thick as thieves.
When we walked in Rowan was sitting in the middle of a 3 foot by 3 foot inflatable square pool (no water though), happy as a clam to be climbing in and out of it. And just like that Liam charged over, all smiles and squeals of glee. He leaned on the soft inflated side of the pool along with Benjamin (who is younger, maybe 8 months?). And though they were just babies, it had the feel of young boys playing king of the mountain.
For a while Liam and Rowan sort of chased each other around the room. I would not have said that Liam usually plays with other babies, and the books all say that truly collaborative play doesn't really happen until they are much older. But it was obvious that the boys were really checking each other out. At one point, for about three or five minutes, they just sat very close to each other and sort of gently poked and prodded one another in turn. Liam would press his index finger gently into Rowan's cheek. Rowan patted Liam's hair, and then Liam patted Rowan's hair. Tapping each other on the shoulder, pulling at each other's shirt.
Both boys are exceedingly well tempered kiddos quick with a giggle or a smile. So much so that another one of the mamas who has a younger son commented that she hoped her kiddo grew up to be as happy as those two.
At one point the two boys took to crawling through the long soft tunnel in the middle of the room. For a while they went in circles politely treating the tunnel like a one-way street. But then at some point both boys started down the tunnel at the same time from opposite directions. About a quarter of the way in, they both seemed to realize it. They stopped crawling and erupted into squeals of laughter. Then they apparently decided to charge, because from the outside as we watched the tunnel suddenly looked like a large blue worm with the hiccups as both boys plodded towards the center laughing like crazy. I can't even say for certain what happened when they met in the middle (was it like a particle collider? did they start a black hole?) but the soft blue tunnel roiled, and there was laughter, and little baby knees and elbows occasionally dimpled the fabric. And in the end two happy babies came back out.
It was really the first moment of observing Liam as an increasingly social human being. Before this playgroup I had only really ever seen him engage in play with Cora. He plays often with Cora, his number one gal pal. And clearly they like each other and move to greet one another when he gets to her house. But when he is there it is just the two babies and they play together even though they have very different styles. He is boisterous and physical, eager to muscle around and over things. She is a bit more intentional and cerebral and delicate. Liam is glad to squish and pound his food just to see how it will splat. Cora can eat an entire meal without needing a bib because she can eat so delicately. When I have seen them play together, it seems often that they are drawn together around an object of play (often this script takes the form of "Oh you are playing with that and therefore I think that looks really interesting...hmmm....give me that...[grab]").
When I saw him chasing around with Rowan, it seemed more like Rowan was the object of play.
A similar thing happened today when we went to Monkey Joes today. The MOMs Club has an outing monthly or so, at least during the cold winter months. It is sort of like a Chucky Cheeses geared towards kids mostly under 6, but it is entirely filled with those giant inflated castles and slides and jumping rooms. I wasnt sure how Liam would fare, but ecstacy is putting it too mildly.
He was in heaven. His first lap around the simple inflated jumping room was tentative, but once he got the hang of crawling up and over the scalloped floor, and discovered he could bounce around a little, there was no stopping him. But one of his favorite things was chasing around the older boys. We spent some time in a large inflated castle type thing, and at one point a group of three and four year old boys came in. Liam's face just lit up. As the group of three boys tussled and ran around, Liam squealed and crawled after them, looking for all the world like he fully intended to be involved in their play. Once the boys fell down in a heap as they slipped over the scalloped floor and Liam redoubled his crawling speed so he could plow into the heap as well. I suppose as a sociologist I shouldn't say this, but I am floored at what a little man's man he is already. I will write more about the Monkey Joe's experience when I post pictures.
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