New Friends: Violet and Arlo

Ella B has made some new friends and so have we! Last week I noticed a woman and two young kids playing in the yard next to ours and decided to walk over and say hello. We were instantly greeted by a blue-eyed darling of a boy who said, "This is my baby sister, Violet. I'm Arlo. I'm five years old." From that moment on, he pretty much didn't stop talking until we left, which was probably close to an hour later. I became fast friends with the mother, Andrea, whose daughter is only a month older than Ella.

We watched as the girls interacted- ignoring each other one minute, staring at each other the next. Violet would occasionally reach out her tiny little hand to touch Ella's hair or back and Ella would pull away or use the international "talk to the hand" motion. She kind of has a thing about personal space- like, if she could talk and she were a ghetto teen, she might say something like "you best be gettin' up out ma face, be-ach!" or something like that. Luckily, she currently only expresses that sentiment in body language.

Arlo spent the majority of our visit, and each subsequent visit thereafter, talking about numbers. Here are a few examples:

"Today at job lot two cash registers were open, number1 and number 5."
"I have to go to the dentist on September 15th."
"I'm going to keep spinning until I get to 169."

This went on for some time until Andrea whispered to him that he should ask me something about myself. Here is how that conversation went:

"Um Jeni, what's your favorite number?"
"Well, I don't really have one, but I like 27 since my birthday is on the 27th."
"Oh, 27. That's Harvey the train's number. Did you know that?"
"No, Arlo. I didn't."

We've hung out a few more times since then and got to make and throw water balloons with them (though Ella wouldn't throw hers and only held it like a baby). She also sat at a tiny picnic table with Violet and played Play-doh for the first time.

Here's to making new friends, especially ones who live close enough to throw a stick at (though I wouldn't recommend doing that).

Sorry there are no pics for this post, but I didn't think it was a good idea to ask my brand new friend if I could plaster pictures of her children on the internet. Take my word for it. They are super cute.