Just a Social Guy

My friend Heather and I decided to take our babies to the water park the other day. They are three days apart but Heather has a little girl Annabella, who I've mentioned here before. It has never been so apparent the differences between boys and girls until this outing. Annabella sat still, playing with a shovel. Nolan ran straight into the deep end to play with the big kids. Annabella sat perfectly still while her mom changed her diaper, applied sunscreen and did her hair. Nolan alligator rolled to keep away from the clean diaper, and I think I was able to cover most of his back with sunscreen as he ran away. Annabella, stayed within 5 feet of her mom, Nolan couldn't get away fast enough. You get the idea.

I started to think that maybe Heather just had better control of her child, and that I was doing something wrong. But as we played at the pool I observed the other kids there. The girls stayed on the outside, playing pretend while the boys whacked each other with those floaty noodle things. Sigh, it's going to be a rough couple years! But that's not the point of this post, so I'll get on with it.

I have learned that Nolan is a naturally curious, social guy. While we were at the water park, I fought him to stay in the pool. At one point i gave up and just let him do his thing while keeping an eye on him from a distance. It turns out, he just wanted to go and say hello to all the parents outside the pool. He went right up to them, raised his hand and said "hi baby!" to each and every one, and when he was done he got into the pool. I was hoping that this charming nature of his sticks around for a while to counter balance the wild boy streak.

I think it just might as yesterday when we were at the doctors office there was a little girl there who was probably 6 or 7, but had some degree of autism. Nolan leached onto her right away and became her shadow, bringing her toys and playing hide and seek. Her mom and I watched them play and when it was time to go, the little girl waved goodbye and said Bye Nolan! The mom stopped in her tracks, she told me that they had been working on peer socialization with their therapist for nearly a year and this was the first time her daughter had verbally acknowledged another child. Maybe it was a fluke or just good timing but I like to think that Nolan has that way about him, the ability to touch those around him and leave a lasting impression.