Standing Up for Herself
Today Olivia survived her first playground altercation. I wasn't there, but had the story related to me by Natalie, the host parent for co-op.
The co-op group ventured to a new park today, which was also the destination for a group of kids from a day care center. 10 or so kids with two caregivers (neither of whom left their potato-chip-eating activities on the bench once the entire 2 hours that Nat and crew were there... they had determined that screaming occasional instructions to their 3-4 year old charges was management enough).
At any rate, all of the kids were climbing the tower and going down the slide, Olivia included. At one point she balked at the top of the slide, holding up three older boys behind her. They crowded and jostled her, making her nervous and causing further delay to the sliding.
The "big boys" (hard to think of 3-4 year olds like this, I know, but in Livvy's case these kids must've seemed enormous) began to jeer at her, calling her a baby. Livvy responded strongly, "I am not a baby!" and as the jeering continued she escalated to yelling at them "I AM NOT A BABY!!!" over and over.
Nat related that she felt torn - she felt very protective of Olivia but didn't want to intercede since Olivia was clearly defending herself. Soon, though, the boys got physical (grabbing at her hat, I think), which reduced Olive to hysteria. At that point Nat intervened, rescuing her from the tower.
Olivia cried in Nat's arms for awhile, while her co-op buddies comforted her "You okay, Livvy? You okay??" and then sat on a rock in the sun while her friends brought her flowers. Apparently this is the balm to all wounds. :-)
When I picked Olivia up in the afternoon she was a happy little camper. We went home and took a nap, but she woke up from the nap crying "Mommy! See Mommmy!!" with more than her usual just-waking-up-crankiness. Repeated attempts to show her that I was there resulted in the same hysterical "Mommy! I want Mommy!" cries, though, so finally I asked her whose Mommy she wanted.
"Gabey's Mommy! I want NAT!"
Natalie, you're Olivia's hero. :-)



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