AJ is not playing well with others. He was Mr. Grabbie at play class this morning and I spent the morning hauling him off into corners for time outs. Not our finest hour. In fairness, most of the incidents occurred when other kids came up and grabbed stuff he was playing with. This is just what two-year-olds do. A little boy named K, the worst offender, does it a lot, but I�m fairly certain he just wants to play with AJ but has no idea how to begin.

Most of the problems involved a pile of beanbags. AJ�s friend G had gathered them all up and was dropping them through a slot in the play equipment. She saw AJ coming and quickly threw the rest of them in, jumped down, climbed on top of them and sat like a nesting hen. AJ wasn�t sure what to do about it so he climbed up where G had been before and peered at her through the slot. Meanwhile, K sauntered up from the side and began grabbing the beanbags out from under G, who promptly started shrieking, �Mine!!� She ran off to chase K, in a brilliant act of vigilante justice, leaving the beanbags for AJ, who gathered them up and began dropping them through the slot. Eventually K came back for the beanbags at which point AJ started yelling, �Mine!� before breaking down in tears of frustration.

�Mine� is pretty much the only word required to either incite or settle any dispute these days. Nevertheless, concepts of ownership are quite fuzzy.

I have trouble dealing with these situations. AJ generally behaves well until he gets taken advantage of, then he gets in trouble when we won�t let him retaliate. I�m not sure this is the message I want to be sending. I don�t want him to be fighting, but I also don�t want him to think he has to let himself get walked on.

AJ can be quite generous, though, when he wants to be. We�ve been invited to a birthday party for his friend Z. I asked him what he thought she would like for her birthday, since these answers are nearly always entertaining -- he thinks his 15-year-old female cousin wants a pack of toy cars. He thought for a minute and said, "It should be something she would like. It should make her happy." No actual solutions yet, but that�s already way more thought than he's ever put into any other gift for anyone on any occasion.

Z�s party was originally supposed to be for family only, but apparently she was quite adamant about AJ�s attendance, and in fact burst into tears when she learned that grownups would be there too. Her mother assured her that all the balloons and decorations would be for the two of them, and she was placated.

In other areas of domesticity, I recently received notice of the next local garden club meeting entitled, �Making a Spring Kissing Ball� and was instructed to bring wire cutters and a glue gun. Yeah. I think I�ll be skipping that one. It seems I don�t play well with others either.

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