A thing for boys

From the perspective of a mother with a daughter, that is a good thing.

We were over at Borders, the Curve yesterday. I needed to to replenish my brainless stock (chic lits). Usually, when we are with Ash at the malls (especially, the malls), we use the stroller. That was only because she wasn't comfortable with walking by herself yet. In recent weeks, her walking improved so I thought, why not let her roam around at the Children's section of the bookstore.

There was this lady with her...oh about 3 or 4 year old son. They were both looking over some books together. And my Ashley decided to walk over and peeked at what they they were doing. You know, with that “Hey you guys, what are you looking at?” expression. I tried to pry her away but she wouldn't budge. If you were a stranger looking at the 3 of them, you'd probably thought that Ash was part of the family or something with her standing close by, attentively listening to the conversation between mother and son.

After they finished picking out what they wanted, they got up and left. And what did lil' Ash do? With a book in one hand and a little knick-knack thing (something she picked up by herself) and as fast as her little feet could take her, went after the little boy. Nope, she didn't give up, she just 'chased' after him. The little boy was so amused that he mumbled something to his mom and started to tease Ash by laughing and making funny faces as he throttled slowly backwards, his front facing Ash as if to say “come come, catch me, catch me..”. Ashley went along, laughing when he made her laugh. This went on for about a couple of minutes.

But all of a sudden, she just lost interest. She simply went another way, towards the stationery shelves cos something else caught her eye. I think it was a pinky pencil case. Anyway, before she could get her hands onto any of those goodies, I picked her up and put her down somewhere else cos if you know Ash, distracting her away with something else is never easy. Of course, if the distraction was another little boy.

Yep, it was her day. This time, a slightly older boy, about 5 or 6. Initially, whenever she went near him, he would turn the other way. His actions didn't dissuade my determined lil' girl. Nope, she continued following him, even tried grabbing his shoe..LOL...But as soon as he began to warm up to her, she got bored and turned the other way. Hook em' and leave em'!...I swear I had nothing to do with it..

Whilst all of this wasn't the first time from Ash but sure was the most fun to watch. I didn't want to stop her from expressing herself, only stepping in when the ocassion warranted it. Like when she started to grab stuff from the shelves or grabbing the security guard's pants (OK, attempted to at least). I thought she had fun and so did I.

My aunt was right, toddling kids are a mighty cute lot. I couldn't agree more (apart from the undescernible tantrums). I'll have another chance at witnessing more of Ash's antics later today as we've got a little boy's birthday party to attend. I'm sure to know who'll be enjoying it the most. Till then, have a great weekend my internet homies! Catch ya later...