Sarina has really never been around babies or kids. There just aren't any in my family (I'm the oldest among all the siblings and cousins, and the first to have a baby). So I brought her to Gymboree last week, in part to see how she'd react.
There was only one other baby there (9 months old and petite, whereas Sarina is a giant, so they didn't look close in age). So the sweetest thing was that Sarina kept crawling her way over to the baby, trying to play. She tried to pass a ball to her, but I don't think the other baby was interested. Still, Sarina waved to her at the end of class. I nearly cried from adorable overload.
I brought her back this week, and there were bunches of babies! And what she wanted to do was touch the babies. She would crawl over to a little one, then touch a leg or arm or whatever. She often tried handing them her toys-- she's REALLY into sharing. No one took her up on her offers, though.
One baby boy was standing, and she used his leg to help her get into a kneeling position, then she touched his butt. Good thing his mom has a sense of humor. I apologized for the odd fondling, but really, I was elated-- I love that she's trying to make little friends. I didn't know what to expect, because I've read that babies normally aren't social creatures until around 18 months, but I've seen how she reacts to pictures of babies in magazines, and I suspected she might want to meet some in real life.
She's also picked up a fun new habit: dancing or conducting whenever she hears music. When the radio is on, she raises her hands like she's conducting an orchestra. When I sing, she just sort of bounces up and down like so:
P.S. Why, yes, those are more clippies from our friend Tabitha at
Bow Baby Bow.