A Tale of Two Visits

Riley and Ellie playing Easter Bunny
The past two weekends were pretty busy for the Molloy family, and Ellie had ample opportunity to "work" on her social skills while being both host and guest. First up, our friend Heidi came to visit over President's Day weekend with her two and a half year old daughter Riley (who, for whatever reason Ellie called Brock). The first morning they were here, Elise was not so much a gracious host as she was a territorial tyrant. Everything Riley wanted to play with was suddenly Ellie's favorite toy (even the things she never plays with) and she possessively snatched things from a bewildered Riley who was sweet as could be. You'd think spending three days a week in daycare would make her a better sharer, but I think it must be different when it's your house and your things.

Ellie and Riley, dancing
Luckily that afternoon I found a bag of hand me down toys given to me by a friend a few weeks ago that I hadn't opened yet. When I put these toys out, it seemed to do the trick because Ellie had never seen them before so wasn't feeling possessive of them yet. By Sunday, the two of them were fast friends. They had tons of fun dancing, hiding and playing ring around the rosey for the rest of the weekend. Ellie is still not completely great with playing with other children (she is still on the tail end of the parallel play phase) but Riley was a good sport when Ellie had moments of "I want to play by myself" and all and all (perhaps other than the first morning) it was an awesome visit.
Ellie and Vienna
The next weekend, we headed down to the Eastern Shore of Maryland to visit our friends William and Jennifer, and their three and a half year old daughter Vienna for the weekend. After a lengthy napless car ride, Ellie was still not interested in napping once we got there. There was way too much to see and do! She loved playing with all of Vienna's toys (and Vienna was much better about sharing than Ellie had been the weekend before) and she loved running around in all the different rooms in their house, exploring their spacious backyard and dumping box and after box of toys of the floor. She was having a blast. That was until it hit about 5:00 with still no nap. She (very gently) banged her head on the floor and - BAM - meltdown time.
Ellie and Vienna fake napping
Sure Ellie has had some major meltdowns in her day, but nothing, and I mean nothing, has ever compared to this one. It was by far the King of all meltdowns. She screamed, she cried, she whined...and 30 minutes later she passed out cold on my shoulder. Unfortunately 5:30 is a very awkward time for a toddler that usually goes to bed at 7 to fall asleep. She hadn't had any dinner, and I definitely had visions of her waking up at 3 in the morning ready to roll. A 3am wake up is never fun, but it particularly un-fun when you are visiting someone else's house and waking up an entire other family. That would not be cool. So, I decided to let her sleep for a half an hour, then woke her up to have some dinner. How was I to know that that would be the worst possible thing to do? When I woke her up, she didn't stop crying. All through eating dinner, all through getting ready for bed and laying down in the pack n play. Cry, cry, cry, until she finally fell asleep. Yikes! Poor William and Jennifer must have thought that we have raised a monster.

The next morning, Ellie got up at a normal time and while she did act a little crazy at first, settled into her normal self and she and Vienna had a nice morning playing together outside: she went on a giant trampoline (the stress of which probably took 3-4 years off of my life, but she had a blast) drove around in an electric toy car (you don't see stuff like that in the city!) and went down the slide a thousand times. Despite Major Meltdown 2008, it was a nice visit and Vienna was a great compainion for our little one.