friends continued

The little boy I've talked about in my previous posts isn't the only one who would watch out for and take care of his friends. I had a boy and a girl move up from the infant room at the same time. They were a few days apart and had the same transition period. The little girl had spina bifida and I had to catheterize her every day after nap in order to make sure she was emptying her bladder. She could move by crawling on her tummy and eventually learned to move by scooting on her bottom.

In order to get her out to the playground I had to put her in a wagon and pull her. One day we were getting ready to go outside when the little boy who moved up with this little girl came over and put his hand on the wagon. As the others started to go out the door I said, "ok, name of child, go follow the co-teacher."
He just looked at me like are you kidding. I tried to prod him along.
"Go follow co-teacher sweetheart."
He looked at me, shook his head no and had a determined look on his face. I thought all right and started across the room. He let go of the wagon in order to get out the door, however, as soon as I was out the door he took hold of the wagon again and walked all the way out to the playground holding onto the wagon. He was determined to stay with this little girl-his friend.

When we got to the playground I set a blanket out on the playground then took this little girl and sat her on it. As I did that this little boy went and got her some toys and brought them to her so she'd have something to play with. He wouldn't play until she was on the blanket with toys to play with. He learned which ones were her favorite and would bring them to her if no one else was playing with them. For part of the time outside he'd come and sit on the blanket with her, part of it he'd go off and play. Either way he stayed close by and took care of her.