Friends

It's funny...when I drove D to Annie Camp that first day, I prepped her.

"Now D, you are going to Annie Camp today.  It's your first day and you'll be going by yourself."
D: "Is Maddy straight going to be there?"
Me:  "No."
D: "Oh, so I'll make new friends like I did at horse camp." (Even though M did attend horse camp with her.)
Me: "Yes!  Just like that."

She seemed to be fine with that.
As we were walking to the theater, a really outgoing little girl walked up next to us.  Her mom commented on D's dress.  Then I was asking this girl's name thinking, "Oh good!  Here's a friend for D!"

Me:  "What's your name?"
Girl: "Sophie!"
Me: "Oh, how old are you?"
Sophie: "I'm four!"

Even better, I think.  This is going well!  Especially since that first day I was not able to spend too much time with D helping her get comfortable.  I had an appointment and I had to hightail it out of there.  When I picked her up at the end of the day there was no Sophie in sight.  I asked D where she was and D just shrugged and said, "I don't know."

Me...disappointment.  Aw..she didn't make a friend.  Will she like Annie Camp??  Luckily for us, on the second day, we bumped into an old friend from D's preschool.  S has since moved to another school but they still remembered each other.  It was S's first time at this camp too so the two of them palled around together the rest of the time.  Phew!

A couple days ago I sat with a mom who asked about my daughter, her age, how she was liking camp and I said D liked it.  But I also added that D had a friend from before.  This mom talked about how her daughter is normally outgoing (she is 3.5), but she totally did not like this camp because it seemed like all the little girls had friends already. They either knew each other from school or from being in camp before and it's true! I didn't see any girls that did not have a friend.  So her normally outgoing daughter was quite distraught at asked several times not to return.

It makes me wonder if D would've been the same...it's tough these things!

And back to that first little girl that I had high hopes of D befriending.  D never did really take to Sophie.  In fact, D announced that she made a new friend, Bryce.  Now looking back at personality traits, Sophie really didn't have the kind of personality that D is drawn to at all.  D doesn't like outgoing girls or girls that might have a problem with D running the show.  :o)