You probably know by now that our 3 year old girl ("A") hasn't handled the transition so well. Basically, waiting for her to settle in and get comfortable wasn't working, because what she really needed was to establish some relationships. And waiting for friends to find us wasn't working so hot either. So I got a little more proactive (let's not call it aggressive) in finding her a buddy and/or something to do.
We've been getting rather sick of each other, you see. Two weeks ago the boys went off to their first day of school, and that day was wonderful. A just pattered off and played quietly by herself - she clearly was needing some quiet time on her own. It was a delightful day.
Since then, she has needed more and more attention to the point where I couldn't get a chore done without a fight.
I was going crazy all over again.
So my project for this week was to fix that problem. After a couple of days of phone calls, toddler networking, emails, driving around lost, crashing play dates, and (literally) knocking on doors, I have successfully found two little girls her age - one just around the corner in our compound. She has had play dates with both Alisha and Hannah and is so proud of her new friends. I'm sure she'll be pestering me for friend time on a daily basis, but there's no contest: it's so much better having her beg for a play date than having her whine and groan about her bellyache. Yesterday in the car she actually said to me "Mommy, my belly doesn't hurt at all!"
Mom: "Really?"
A: "Yeah. But my back hurts now."
You take what you can get.
And to top it all off, the nursery school that a bunch of the toddlers in our compound go to called this morning - they have space for A starting Sunday. She'll go four mornings a week, which means that four mornings a week I will have a life.
Hoo-ah!
I have been known to declare victory too soon (what can I say - I'm American), but I really think things are coming around.
