A Break Through

For Anna, people outside of her immediate family fall into three different categories:

1) People she loves.  This includes, but is not limited to, my mother and sisters, the Bailey cousins and one of John's sisters.  These people will be spoken to and hugged.

2) People she tolerates.  This includes my mother- and father-in-law, my father.  This category also includes some of John's relatives depending on her mood.  She generally will not go to them, but she won't run screaming from the room either.

3) People she cannot stand.  This includes various people including random strangers and John's brother.  She will run screaming when she sees these people.

A couple of times, I've asked my in-laws to come over to watch the kids while John and I go and run some quick errand.  Jack will lap up the attention he gets from his grandparents.  Anna runs upstairs to her room and hides there until we come home.  When we go to my in-laws' house, she'll play, but she won't talk to them.  She never gives them hugs when she leaves.  If they ask her a direct question she will either grunt at them or she will ignore them.
 
I'm sure this hurts them, but they've been pretty good about it.  They recognize that there's something going on in the kid's head that is not quite the same as in other kids' heads.  They respect that and give her the space she needs.  And I respect them for it.

A couple of weeks ago, I brought the kids home to Connecticut.  She was, of course, in love with my mother and sisters.  But this time, she was all over my dad.  When we walked into the house, she shouted, "Where's Grampa Bailey?"  She had hugs and kisses for him the whole time we were there.  I was pretty thrilled and so was my dad.

Last weekend, we went to John's sister's house for an impromptu cook-out.  She has a nice pool and my kids are fish.  Anna spoke to no one except for Jack and me the whole two hours or so she was in the pool.  When she was done, she warmed up and then decided it was time to go.  She got up and gave hugs to everyone.  John's sister, of course.  But then she trotted right over to her grandma and then to her grandpa.  She then gave hugs to other people she had never seen before the day.

John and I were thrilled by it.  It was amazing!  What a big step!  We don't really want her to be going around giving hugs to people she doesn't know, but the hug for her grandpa was pretty special.  Even he commented on it.

Pretty cool.