Boyfriends

Today Tess and I met her friend Elliot (and his mother) for a playdate at the park. We used to see Elliot every week when we were doing regular playdates throughout the winter, but it had been 3-4 weeks since they'd played together. Amy, Elliot's mother, had set up this date with me because despite the long absence, Elliot had been talking about Tess and missing her. Tess was equally delighted to hear that she got to see Elliot.

After about 30 minutes of play, Elliot really wanted Tess to sit down with him and eat some sandwich. Amy told me that they had made that sandwich together that morning to intentionally share with Tess. Elliot helped spread the almond butter and jelly, talking about Tess the whole time. Normally he eats some and then puts some in the tupperware, but because he was going to share with Tess he put the whole thing in the tupperware without eating a bite. And when he opened the tupperware and offered Tess the first piece, you could see how excited he was to give it to her.

Sadly, Tess doesn't really eat sandwiches, and after one bite, she wasn't that interested in it. Poor Elliot tried to get her to sit and eat with him a couple more times throughout the morning, but never with any success. Still, it was so sweet.

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Tess is become especially fond of her little friend Sebastian lately. Ime, Sebastian, and Tess go through different phases of pairing off or playing together. For a long time Tess was too little to actively engage in play with Ime and Sebastian. Then Ime and Tess tended to play together for a while. But lately, Tess and Sebastian have a rapport.

Sebastian likes to make houses or boats or cars with his table and chairs, and he only lets Tess come inside. He pretends to be a goat, and Tess feeds him milk from a bottle. Or they sit and have little conversations about what is good to eat with chocolate. (Things like poop and Mama and broccoli. So funny apparently.) I tried to capture one of those conversations on video, but only caught the tail end of it. I'll include it here, but it's a pretty boring video, sadly. But you can get a feel for how crazy Tess is for Sebastian attention.



And here's another video I took of the three of them last week. It also didn't turn out to be the greatest video footage, but last night, Tess was watching it on the computer, and she acted out the moment when Sebastian turned to her and said, "I like it," over and over again. That moment of attention from him just made her so happy as she watched this video repeat for as many times as I'd allow.