So far, so nice

We went out on a playdate with the littlest boy in our parents group this morning. We went to this slightly odd shopping centre that used to have the most amazing play area in the middle. Too amazing actually - while it was brilliant, the parents weren't. They tended to ignore the age signs, so there would be lots of kids that were far too big to be in there, and they would knock over the little ones. And the area around it has seats and so there was a fair amount of non-supervision going on. While I am a bit of a fan of this, if your kid is a biter or problematic in some way, and you are sitting outside having a coffee and not supervising - I'm not ok with that.

And the last time we went there, my kid was pretty severely bitten. On both arms. While I was in there with him, but down below the kids only climbing frame. So I doubt it was that kid's first time biting. 

However, we didn't have that problem this morning, I doubt there were any kids older than 3 there. But they have built some new shops and chopped up the play area, and it is not a viable playdate space for us anymore.

Anyway, my point was that my friend's son is the youngest in our group, but also very little for his age. And he has gotten to that point of being quite aggressive. She was kind of horrified at his behaviour in the play area this morning. I was of the opinion that littler kids can often get like that - he has probably been knocked about a little bit at daycare and decided that he is going to have to be assertive to get what he wants, and he doesn't know how to do that well. So he was knocking kids over, pushing them out of his way and so on. 

I found it interesting because Atti was the focus of some of it (in S's defence, it looked like he was trying to play chasey with Atti and Atti wasn't playing. So he would run up to him and give him a push,  I think in the hopes of getting him to run so he could chase him) and I was curious what he would do. Lately there has been an issue at daycare with Atti and another little boy, and Atti has come home with a scratch or two. I think he probably snatched a toy of this boy who belted him. But I was wondering if he pushes or anything back - I've not seen (or been told by anyone) him start anything physical himself.

He didn't do anything. Well he sat down and cried and came over to me wailing that S had hurt him. I suggested he put out his hand and say 'stop S. It is not ok to hit/push'. And he did kind of take that up, mostly he just yelled 'stop' at him (with a hand up like a traffic cop). So I was pretty pleased.

Less pleased about the in-and-out of the playground, about the running off, I could live without those.

But I had promised ice cream if he was good (specifically defined as no shouting, no taking things off shelves and no running off) while I shopped in the discount chemist they have out there. And there is an ice-cream lady out there who thinks my son is utterly adorable now. We walked up and I was asking what kind of ice cream he wanted and there was a huge mound of blue ice cream (called smurf ice cream if you don't mind - smurfs apparently taste like caramel) so he asked for blue ice cream. I was asking the lady what flavour it was, so she got a little spoon and gave him a taster and he said 'thank you. thank you, oh thank you'. And she and I looked at each other and I said 'oh he thinks that is the ice cream!' She said 'take that and run' - so I did! He was licking it and announcing that he likes ice cream to everyone we passed on the way out!

We seem to be doing well on the manners these days, he is very good at please and thank you and excuse me, which is nice. And comes in handy when at shops, because he seems to charm them when he thanks people unprompted!