by Sangeetha Narayan

Created on: January 25, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

Have you ever seen little ones interact during their play time? It s so much fun to watch that you'll never realize when time flew by. I take my three-year-old daughter, Neha, to play with her three-year-old friend Julia. Now, they both love to be with each other. Neha goes running towards Julia, "Julila .Hi!" And the roly-poly Julia comes running towards us with a huge smile on her face.

The first 15-minutes are fun for both of them as they chase each other in their tri-cycle, giggling and yelling. Then Julia's older brother, Baddy, decides to go roller-skating with his best friend. That's when I notice a huge pout on Julia's face that makes her face look even rounder (if that's possible). I asked her, "Oh what happened sweetie? Why are you sad?"

To that Julia gives me that Don't you even know this' look and goes, "My brother is gone! He left me!" Trust me, if you were there, you too would have rushed to give her a tight hug and a big kiss, just like I did. Then, I told her, "That's OK sweetie. He'll come back. And while we're waiting for him, why don't you play with Neha?"

My little one springs in action with a huge smile and goes, "Let's play Julila!"

Well, Julia was feeling too low by then and refuses to co-operate. So my daughter makes a long face and looks at me, "Mommy, I'm sad now! Julila won't play with me!"
Then, she decides to make herself feel better by riding her cycle aimlessly. That's when the miracle happens, and Julia brings a huge soccer ball and invites Neha to join her. But, now it was my little darling's turn to pout, "I don't want to play with you!" So, Julia is left holding the ball looking sadder than she was before.

By now, I was beginning to lose my patience with the toddlers! So, I decided to join Julia in a game of throw and catch. My daughter kept looking at us, the pout getting stronger on her face, but stubbornly refusing to play with Julia. She then suddenly screams, "Mommy, I'm hurt! I got a boo-boo!" Now, the mystery here was how could she possibly get hurt when all she'd been doing for the past 10 minutes was sitting on the cycle and sulking? So, I just tell her, "That's Ok, Neha. You'll feel better after sometime."

The pout was back and she was quiet for a few minutes, and then another scream, "Mommy, there are ants here!"

"So, don't sit there! Go to another place and sit!" I told her calmly.

After a few minutes of some more pout, she decided that she'd enough of sitting and waiting. She slowly comes towards me and smiles, "Mommy, can I play too?"

AHA! Finally, she took my bait. I hand her the ball and ask her to throw it to Julia. she shakes her head, "I want to play with Mommy."

I shake my head too, "Mommy always play with you at home. You have come here to play with Julia, right?"

She thinks about it for a minute and decides that she'd rather play with Julia than sit and stare again. So, I slowly move from that place feeling happy that I'd finally succeeded in getting them to play. Well, I celebrated too soon! Within two minutes, they didn't want to play with each other again. Seriously, what's up with kids? It is exhausting to play these mental games with them all the time!

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