Gentle! GENTLE!

Yesterday was another day of training for the peer counseling job - which I am still ridiculously excited about - and the second time I took Ben along. It’s so wonderful that I’m allowed to bring the Benjaroo for trainings. It makes things a lot less stressful. Yesterday was the first day my co-peer counselor brought her adorable 9 month old baby girl with her, armed with a ton of really cool toys and a Pack’n'Play, too.

To be honest, I was a little nervous introducing them to play with one another. It’s been no real secret that Ben’s remained pretty unsocialized since birth, other than with children quite a bit older than him. The best friends he’s had so far have been 3 and 5 and, while he really enjoyed it, the extent of their playtime was him handing them giant legos so they could “build Ben a building.” He’d never really had direct contact playing with anyone that wasn’t a member of our family. I imagined him grabbing a hold of the little girl’s hair and trying to pull off her face while I ran in circles screaming, “BE GENTLE! BE GENTLE!”

So we put them both in the Pack’N'Play and commenced to attempting to trick our eyes into a feat most would be incapable of attaining. We kept one eye on the presentation (my co-PF managed to do this with the presentation behind her - Im-freakin’-pressive) and one on the babies. At first, Ben sat in the corner of the PNP, positively terrified. I had to fight with every ounce of my mommy protectiveness to not yank him out of there and tell him, “It’s okay, baby. Mama doesn’t like socializing either. You only ever have to hang out with me. Ever. I’ll even be your prom date.”

Instead, I let him stew and he got acclimated. He climbed out from the corner and he grabbed a book. After a short pull back and forth, they mutually turned the pages, pressed the buttons and nearly made me cry. The rest of the day they spent predominantly together in the PNP, or with her crawling off while he chased her. She got out to be changed? He started at her from the side of the PNP nearest to her, pointed and hollered, “AH! AH!” She reciprocated.

It was disgustingly cute and my immediate reaction was to tear up and get all sorts of fuzzy about my sweet baby growing up. I have a feeling I might be that mom who cries on the first day of school, cries during the first bike ride, first date and prom. The anticipated therapy bill has just grown expotentially.

Filed under 10 month |