Frances Update

I haven't posted about Frances for a while.

Today, we were rolling a ball back and forth (well she was bouncing it to me) and the ball rolled through her legs. She watched it go through and looked between her legs as it rolled away. She retrieved the ball and then proceeded to roll it between her legs again (like snapping a football) and watched it as it rolled. She did this several times. Arial said that this is a milestone of some sort. That made me proud.

Once a week, we go to this play group thing at a local elementary school. It is for kids five and younger. They have a lot of big toys there to play with like play houses and tricycles and small slides. It's kinda cool and nice to get Frances interacting with other kids. For the most part she is shy but she isn't mean and she is pretty good at sharing (except that she doesn't like to give up the drivers seat in a play van).


She normally has a pretty good time (if she isn't hungry or overly tired). This last time though was a little trying. Frances was playing in a little house and this older kid wanted in (we'll call him Jerkface because I couldn't call him that there and I need to get it out of my system before we go back again). Frances was by the door so Jerkface pushed her down.

His parent or guardian was no where to be seen. Frances cried and we carried her out for a little bit. She bounce back pretty quickly and seemed excited to go back in. We played happily for a while.

Later, she was playing in a different house. Jerkface and another older boy (his brother?) were chasing each other or something and they decided to crawl in the windows of the little house. Frances was just standing by the door (not really in his way this time) and he said something like "Get out" and pushed her in the back.

That made Arial and I angry. I yelled "Don't push her" and he seemed to realize that he had been caught. He said "sorry" and his mother/guardian (who happened to be near this time) seemed to think that he wasn't just sorry that he got caught.

We picked up Frances who was crying again after being senselessly pushed. I took her out and I could hear Arial telling the mother/guardian what had happened (both times). She pointed out that he wasn't being properly supervised. The mother/guardian explained that he had said that he was sorry. Arial told him that it was good of him to apologize (which was probably better than what I thought which was "Sorry doesn't unpush my daughter").

I was proud of Arial. She did a good job walking the line between stern and completely enraged. I'm sure she did a better job than I would have. I probably would have either just walked away giving an angry look as I walked by or yelled at the lady and Jerkface in a completely inappropriate way. I don't know which. But Arial did a great job of sounding like an adult.

So, I calmed Frances down some and when Arial got done with them, she helped too. We stayed out a little bit longer that time but eventually she did want to go back in. She played fairly happily for a while longer, although initially you could tell that she was looking around to see that Jerkface wasn't near.

It still makes me mad but Frances managed to get past it. I suppose, I should too.

mwz