halloweenie

Now that Goober is in the "special class," he seems to be making more friends. Every day he comes home to tell me about what he did at recess with his classmates and another phone number to add to his rapidly expanding rolodex. (Do we still use those? I mean, I have one in my office, but I seem to be the only one and I'm pretty sure we're not using them because we can store two million contacts on our phones, but there isn't an app to transfer them all to my smart phone, which doesn't seem so smart now, does it?)

Anyway... this year for Halloween, he made a trick or treat date with one of his classmates, a little girl that lives about a mile up the road from us. This was a new development. Most years I was his trick or treat date and a disappointing one at that. Apparently, moms aren't cool even for first graders, much less the older and wiser second graders. But he was so excited to trick or treat with his friend, so I went along with it. I made the arrangements and we were good to go.

(A side note... Goober wanted to be Garfield for Halloween this year and as much as I tried to talk him into getting a third year out of his Harry Potter costume he would not be swayed, so I gave in and bought him a rather expensive costume online, which was still $15 cheaper than the version I found in a store, but since this is the only child we have trick or treating this year, I thought I would splurge. So when he came home and said he wanted to be Harry Potter for a third year in a row because Miss C was going to be Hermione, I kind of lost it. In a moment of inspiration, however, I said he could be Crookshanks so that would still work with Hermione. He bought it, thank goodness. Also, Miss C turned out to be just a witch, so it all worked.)

But the kids had a ball. Miss C and Goober tore around the neighborhood at Mach 3 and made a absolute haul. And it was kind of fun for me to see him with a friend who was... well, on his level.

See, most of the time in preschool and in first grade, Adam had friends, but he didn't ever really connect with them. He would play along side of them, he would run around with them, but they didn't really talk or share or have things in common. Sometimes when I would eavesdrop on Goober and his friends, I would hear Goober talking and then the friend talking and they never seemed to be having the same conversation. Or Goober would talk and his friend would look at him funny. I know parallel play is perfectly acceptable for kids of a certain age, but at some point you wonder if they're ever going to make real friends, true friends that they can talk with and do things with and share things with.

And then they do. I don't know why it's working now, why he's suddenly making close friendships. I know he's maturing and he's learning more about how to deal with people in general and maybe that's just it. Maybe he's just growing up. But whatever it is...

I'm just glad he's having fun.