James and Ashram and Friends

As most of you know, I strongly believe in close, intimate relationships with friends. I am not about the superficial surface stuff that goes on in people's lives. I want to know about you and your trials and tribulations. I have come to believe that friendships are part of the fabric that makes me who I am today. Friends energize and uplift me. I appreciate other people's views on friendships and understand that everyone has feels and thinks differently about friendships. I was curious about how James and Ashram's think about the concept of friends. Here is what they said:

For James, it is about playing. When I observe James playing, he truly is indiscriminate about who he plays with but rather what he does. JJ is so kind, caring, and loving that he plays with everyone. It is really hard for him when two people do not get along. Today, a friend came to ask him to play and they went out to play and another friend came to play but does not get along with the first friend. At first, it looked like James was going to have to choose which one to play with. A few minutes later, they were all playing together thanks to James' peacemaking skills and no adult intervention:-) Go James!

I would have to say for Ashram, it is about playing too. In general, he tends to play with more girls than boys because the girls tend to play house, barbies, doctor, etc. 

I will be honest, as his mom, I worried about the backlash this would have on Ashram's social engagements and that kids would "genderify" his play as "girly".  John and I talked a lot about this and came to the conclusion that play is play and imaginative play is excellent use of his brain (FYI-John played with Barbies until he was 8. I, on the other hand, had Barbies, but was so frustrated on how perfect they were). And that if their is backlash, we would have to help Ashram work through it. 

The other day, we were looking for sun hats for him because it has gotten really hot really quickly here. If you are out in the middle of the day it can be brutal without a hat. He saw a Barbie hat and he was so excited and he wanted that hat and did not want to look any further. Again, I am not going to lie, I tried to convince him to get the other hats that had flaps to cover his neck and tried to convince him that the green or yellow hat was better to protect him from the sun. He was adamant, I clicked "add to cart". The Barbie hat came yesterday and he immediately opened it and started wearing it. His friend Larissa started teasing him and asking him why is he wearing a girls hat. Ashram simply said "because I like it." She repeatedly kept teasing him and he continued to play with Larissa. Mind you, no adult intervention. Go Ashram!