Play Date with Alex

On Monday, Hallie had a playdate with her friend Alex, who is 2 years old going on 15 or so. Sharon took Hallie over to Alex's parents' house (our friends Sheila and Brett) to hang out and have fun. The idea was that they'd check out the park in Bala Cynwyd (where they live) and see what their swings have to offfer, pop by Rosa and Stan's (Brett's parents) house to introduce the kiddo to Rosa, who was orchestrating a huge Passover seder, and then play it by ear.

Hallie loved the park, but not in the way you'd think. She promptly fell asleep in her stroller upon arriving and did not wake up again until she'd been bundled back into her car seat. Alex, in contrast, had a grand time running around.

When they got back to Alex's house, it was storytime. Alex, who is precocious and talented as well as adorable, shared some of her favorite books with Hallie, and Hallie proved a very rapt audience:



It really helped that the book Alex chose was an Alphabet book. Hallie's favorite ditty in the universe is the Alphabet Song (she also digs the other songs that share its melody (Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and Baah, Baah, Black Sheep). Basically, she's a Mozart-for-Suzuki-Violin junkie. Today when we were watching Barney (please don't ask!) together, she perked up when the dumpy dinosaur launched into an inevitable chorus of her number one fave.)



Alas, listening to stories is of limited interest still to Hallie, whose mastery of the English language (alphabet song tune aside) is rather limited. And so, in the end, as always the Manhattan Toy won out!