We met up with my cousin Jennifer, her hubby Brad, and their little girl Alexandra for dim sum last Saturday morning. I’m pretty sure that the last time we’ve all seen each other was at Alex’s first birthday party 6 months ago, so reacquainting the two little girls was overdue.

While waiting for Jen, Brad and Alex’s arrival at the Irvine Spectrum, we let Allie run around the quad by a Ferris wheel. (We’d agreed to meet in front of Capital Seafood for dim sum, but as it’s the first building nearest the street, Allie kept trying to dart toward the parking structure across the street. Kinda scary.) Allie saw a little boy about her age running around with his daddy and some other guy. She decided to follow him. When he finally saw her, he decided to chase after her, and Allie played coy, turning around and running back across the lawn, the small boy in pursuit. She climbed onto a chair, he climbed up after her, and suddenly, she decided he was in her space. I thought it was cute, though, and asked if the boy’s dad was okay if I took/posted a photo. He said it was fine and that if his wife were there, she’d be taking photos, too. So here’s Allie and Hudson.

Hudson was friendly and even hugged Allie, but she’d apparently already made up her mind.

Turns out Hudson is 18 months so he’s got 2 months on Allie, a month for each inch she has on him. =P This is starting to happen a lot.

Soon, Jennifer, Brad and Alex arrived. The two little cousins were a bit shy with each other, and Alex so shy that she didn’t want to go near Allie and wanted to be carried by her parents. Our fiercely independent girl didn’t push, but she was good running/walking on her own to the restaurant. Both girls ate pretty well, across from each other between their respective parents, and Jennifer was impressed watching Allie gobble up the extra steamed cauliflower and carrots I’d brought along. Dim sum isn’t known for being very veggie-oriented. Alex ate well on her own and can use a fork, and did resist veggies like her parents predicted. Allie ate a lot of the Chinese broccoli we’d ordered for the table. I let her sample everything, but didn’t want her to eat a ton of the sodium- and MSG-laden food. Allie didn’t much miss it.

After brunch, we tried to get the girls play together for a bit.

Alex wouldn’t get close enough for Allie to hug, so Allie hugged the nearest bush, instead.

Yes, I’ve heard jokes about her almost being a tree-hugger. I’ll have you know that while we were waiting for Jen, etc to arrive, Allie did indeed hug a few palm trees in between dancing from one music-blaring wall speaker to another to another.
With her daddy in tow, Alex got a little friendlier.

Here are the two either playing invisible soccer, or doing the kid-n-play.

They even watched a few horses go by.

When we were walking back to our cars, Alex was holding on to Jen’s hand toddling along, and Allie was running along ahead of us. I thought it would be cute to get a photo of us two mommies walking with our little girls, holding their hands, but Jennifer misunderstood me and picked Alex up. I figured a photo with us holding each of our girls is fine, too, so we took that. The girls refused to smile.

And then we moved to do the photo pose I wanted, but Alex got shy again and refused to be put down, so I didn’t get that photo. Oh, well…next time. But meanwhile, Allie decided to play Runway Model and struck a pose.

I was a little surprised at Alex being so shy since she’d been in daycare for most of her life, so I thought she’d be very social. However, her cautiousness may highlight something Mr. W is concerned about — kids in daycare deal with all sorts of little personalities, some overaggressive, and they have to know how to protect themselves. Allie doesn’t know to do that; she’ll walk up to any kid and want to share toys, give them hugs, touch their hand, and for some kids, this is invading their personal space. Mr. W is afraid that in a social setting, Allie may get picked on or pushed or something because she doesn’t know to stay away from other kids until they’re ready for her. I don’t have enough kid experience to know either way, whether it’s a learned protective behavior we’re seeing or just a personality thing. I’m not very concerned at this point. I rather like my friendly secure kid.