First friends!

Friend may be too strong of a word. Yesterday was the first time Alyria not only tolerated other people, but actually had fun with other children.

Her godmother lives some distance away, so we don’t get frequent visits. And it has been several months since she’s seen her. On top of it, Alyria still tends to take quite a while to warm up to people. We make it a point to tell her when she’ll meet new people and to show her a picture of them if we have the opportunity. I did it this time, but I didn’t really get any indication that she remembered her godmother.

When our guests arrived (godmother and her kids -- 6 and 11), Alyria didn’t freak out and scream like she has in the past. She did, however, constantly want me to hold her, which I did of course. But I gave her many opportunites to interact with our guests and to come down off me.

At one point, we were outside and the kids were playing around. Alyria seemed a little interested in watching them. And they were super friendly in including Alyria as well. So I put her down and walked a few feet away.

They started interacting. Alyria was timid at first, but the kids kept including her and trying to make her laugh. Eventually she had a blast. I’d never seen her so happy and interactive with people outside the immediate family before.

We had many hours of enjoyment and Alyria couldn’t get enough. This is probably the first time she’s realized she could have fun with other children. Eventually it was her bedtime, and she was quite sad about that. But that’s a whole other post.