Little mamas

Garrett and I got Amelia and Abigail baby dolls and doll size strollers to push around for their birthdays. They absolutely love them, even more than I expected. I knew the strollers would be a hit--they always are when we go play at DeAnna's house where her daughter Riley has two strollers and the four kids are always fighting over them. But I had no idea how they would really take to the dolls too, doting on them and giving them their bottles like good little mamas. It's been fun to see.

Part of what's fun is watching how my girls' personalities shine through as they practice their mothering skills. Amelia is a careful and conscientious mother, holding her baby often, offering the bottle and making sure she's strapped in to the stroller properly. She is gentle and remarkably attentive, in my opinion. She handles both dolls lovingly. Abigail, on the other hand, is a bit more impulsive. At first she doted on her baby as well, holding him in her lap and feeding him his bottle happily. But when she's tired of him, she's tired of him, and she doen't think twice about tossing him on the floor or dumping him out of the stroller. At one point she and Amelia were sitting with their babies on the couch. Abby dumped her baby on the floor. Amelia waited a moment, but when it was clear that Abby wasn't getting up, Amelia dutifully put her baby down on the couch, slid onto the floor, picked up Abby's doll and handed him back to her. Abigail promptly dropped him back on the floor. Yesterday, in fact, Abigail decided that she did not want her own baby at all, but she wanted Amelia's. She spent a significant portion of the morning wailing over wanting the girl doll instead of the boy doll. Today, apparently, the boy is just fine again. Somehow I think this says more about Abigail than the doll!

In any case, I love watching my girls and seeing how their different approaches to life are manifesting in more and more of the things they do and the ways they play. Sharon started working with Amelia during her speech therapy sessions last week and it's even been eye opening to hear what she observes. Amelia has sat in on sessions for Gabe and Abby before, so she's not new to being around Sharon, but she is new to the one-on-one work. I have not gotten to watch a session yet but Sharon reports that Amelia is more self-directed than Sharon expected and that she really is pretty opinionated one-on-one. In a group she's pretty cooperative and submissive, but when it's just her she's more inclined to refuse to follow direction or object to being guided or prodded. Maybe she's gotten so comfortable in the group setting that she's not quite sure how to respond to individual attention and direction. I'm interested to hear how her personality is coming out in these sessions, but I'm not worried about it. Mostly I feel relieved that Amelia is finally working with a therapist I really trust, and that she is finally getting the individual attention that she needs and deserves. It's all right with me if takes her some time to adjust to the newness of it. Every kid deserves special alone time and I know that after the transition Amelia will be a lot better off with our new arrangement.