Eli & Gracie, Sittin' in a Tree...

Wow. That was fast. Eli has his first girlfriend. Gracie (who was born two days before Eli...an 'older' woman) has been coming over to our house for playdates for several months now. The two get along for the most part, but today they officially became a couple. After playing next to and around each other for about an hour, the two ended up sitting next to each other on the bottom step of our staircase. After a few minutes Gracie leaned over and kissed Eli on the cheek. He smiled and leaned closer to her and she did it at least one more time. A little while later they were spotted walking across the room hand in hand. (Gracie likes to grab your hand or finger and 'take' you places; that's probably the origin of the hand-holding.) I had the camera, but of course these moments were impossible to catch on film. There is another little girl in the playgroup, but she didn't show any hard feelings over being left out of the love nest.

Speaking of playgroups, Eli met up with a few friends for a new one yesterday. This group contained two other boys, both younger. For some reason this is a challenge for Eli. He is able to be civil and sometimes nice to kids his age or older, but he tends to bully and 'no-no' younger ones much more readily. He did offer up a kiss to the 10-month old little boy, completely unprompted (which was a first). However he spent the rest of the morning taking away toys (which weren't even his, mind you) and saying "NO-NO".