My little sweetie.

Today Sofia got all dressed up for the Sunday celebration of Carnival in the small town where she goes to preschool.  She decided to wear her new Belle dress for the occasion.  She is suddenly interested in wearing makeup!!  But mean mommy just thinks it's a bit too soon (like ten years too soon!).  Carnival is a good excuse to wear it though.  After doing her hair and putting on some light make up she was ready, and I had tears in my eyes!  She looked so grown up.   I cannot believe how fast time flies.  She was just a baby yesterday and now she is off at preschool all day and becoming an independent little girl.

 I was interested to take her this year since last year she only knew one other child there, her beloved friend Sara.  This year however she knew many of the young children there from school.  It is always interesting to watch her play with other kids since her play dates until now have always been with just a select few children and always one on one.  She reminds me a lot of myself as a child.  She is a bit shy and reserved and isn't usually the leader of the group.  She tends to sit back and watch.  Though she would like to participate she is usually very timid about the whole thing, especially if the other kids are more rambunctious than her.

It was interesting to watch her jealously guard her confetti and quietly say no when the other kids would try to take a handful since they had used theirs up already.  She doesn't like wasting in fact she was the last one with a bag of confetti in the end.  (I assume that is a learned behavior since I am very much that way, never waste!)
You could tell she wanted to run around with the other kids and she eventually did but it took her about 20 minutes before she finally got into it!

Later she found an older friend of hers from school Martina, with whom she was very content to walk around with hand in hand.  She did this for the next hour (literally held hands with the girl for an HOUR)  The party then moved into the small room behind the church where there were drinks, traditional cakes and music.  Sofia was content walking around with Martina and two other older girls.  They sat around in a circle on the floor and chatted.  My good friend and Sara's mom said "well I guess you can't make them be friends"  since Sara was still off running around with another girl and Sofia was sitting like a little lady with the older girls.  But just at that moment, as if she had heard our conversation, Sofia popped up and ran over to find Sara.  They then ran around, danced and had a wonderful time until it was finally time to go.

I am very happy that my little girl is such a sweetie, but I am also a bit worried that she will be the kid who gets left out of things because she isn't as aggressive as the others.  I suppose that I turned out alright but I would never want her to have to suffer the feeling of rejection like I did because I was always just a a bit too shy.