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08/13/2002 Entry: "Yesterday"

We had a long day yesterday. Since I had to run errands in the next town over, and we had to be there in the evening anyway for a LLL meeting, I decided to make a day of it for us. We ran our errands, ate lunch, did a little window shopping, and spent several hours at the park. Sam enjoys playgrounds so much more now that he can walk from toy to toy as he chooses, but he still itches to be able to move as fast and climb as high as the bigger kids. I had to continually rescue him and pull him back from the brinks of the platforms on the jungle gyms when he was trying to follow them down climbing bars or rope ladders.

The meeting was good, but Sam once again went head to head with an older, more aggressive little boy. Sam thought little Willy was the coolest boy he had ever seen, but Willy was disinclined to play nicely with Sam; he kept pushing and knocking down Sam whenever he got near him. To her credit, Willy's mom was right there, correcting him and attempting to stop the behavior; even when she put Willy in a chair for time-out and asked him to just try to stay away from Sam, though, Sam toddled right back over to Willy's chair with a huge, if tear-streaked, smile and toys to share.

He's covered in bruises today. Nice. We're going out in a bit to pick up some more Arnica to treat those. I just wish I knew how to help him stand up for himself without turning him into a bully, too.

Replies: 2 sandcastles

It's so hard to watch, but at least part of that is just his age. It's really a blessing that so many little ones just let everything go for the most part when they're pre-communicative because there's not much they have the ability to do at that point.

My daughter is nearing three. A year and a half ago she was the kid being beat up on. Now she's going through phases that are full of "mine!" shoves, and "no!" and we're working very hard on saying "please do not do that" or walking away. But we CAN work on it now because she speaks well enough for other children to understand her and she has a big enough vocabulary to understand what I'm telling her. Those communication abilities change a lot of things!

Posted by nina @ 08/15/2002 07:07 PM EST

It's killing me to read about Sam's trouble with bullies. I hope that he never loses his sweet disposition. And I have no idea what I will do when the time comes that I have to go through that with my baby!

Posted by sherry @ 08/14/2002 02:55 PM EST