Play Time

Today I took Ava to her weekly Busy Little Bodies class at the village centre behind our house. The hour is spent singing songs and clapping, playing with puppets and then having tea and a cookie afterward. Ava occasionally pays attention to what's happening during the singing and clapping time but more often than not, she's running around the gym trying to play with fire extinguishers and electrical sockets. I was starting to wonder if I was wasting my time taking her to these classes, when a few hours later at home, she began singing some of the songs from the class! I suppose she is paying attention after all, even if it doesn't show.

I found out from some of the other mothers that I should have already registered Ava with a preschool in the area if I wanted her to attend one when she's two and a half. I hadn't really thought about it but I suppose it's probably good preparation for when she has to go to real school.

Earlier this evening I took Ava over to Isabelle and Cody's house, and while Isabelle and I were chatting on the sofa, Ava tried to climb up to sit with us. Suddenly she let out a shriek and started to cry. I looked down and noticed that Cody had ahold of her shirt with his teeth. I thought he was just holding her back and that it was upsetting her, so I took the t-shirt out of his mouth and noticed a very painful looking bite mark on Ava's tummy! She was very upset and kept clinging to my neck and trying to hide from Cody. Isabelle was really concerned and kept scolding Cody, but he ended up biting me a little while later and then Isabelle as well. Ava has bitten me a few times but I always squeeze her mouth and say 'No biting! No biting!' every time she does it. She doesn't really do it anymore, so hopefully my scolding is working.

Graham and I took her to one of these indoor play world places a couple of days ago and we let her run around on her own, but still keeping an eye on her. When I went to get us some tea I saw her trying to get into a little helecopter ride. There were three little boys inside (older than Ava) and one of them suddenly shoved Ava really hard and she fell backwards out the door and landed on the ground on her back! She burst into tears and came running over to me. I felt so bad for her, I wanted to go shout at the little boy for being mean but I figured it would start something with his mother - if she was even paying attention - and it's probably best that Ava learns other kids can be mean, and that's not the right way to behave. It's just so sad to see someone hurt my little girl :(

So it's been a rough couple of days for her when it comes to playing with other children, and we're going to a Tumble Tots class tomorrow afternoon, so hopefully no one will try and beat her up and maybe she'll make a friend or two.