While we were at Urgent Care attending to Dylan’s biking accident, we missed a phone call from Yuchen and Ellie who were spending a day at the beach. Luckily, they pretty much spent the entire day in town and we managed to hook up with them for dinner.
Undeterred by his boo boo’s, Dylan went and picked a “collection of flowers” for Ellie–rosemary, jasmine (which he proclaimed he “just loved” the smell of), and a sprig of peppermint–all found just outside the doors of the restaurant.
Ellie is very shy, even though the kids have known each other since birth (since Mark, Yuchen and Tom have all known each other since their grad school days at U. of Chicago) and we’ve done overnight family trips with them, etc. so I was especially pleased to see Dylan come out of his own shell and try to engage her in conversation. Plus, it was just super sweet of him to think to pluck flowers for her! He even sat opposite the table from me because he wanted to sit next to her! Believe me, this is pretty unusual; he usually wants to camp out right next to me (if not on my lap!).
Before the food even arrived, the kids were giggling and chatting and giving each other turns playing games on Yuchen’s iPad and on my Droid.
Admittedly, it would have been nicer if they didn’t bond over games…but it was a pretty good icebreaker for sweet little Ellie! Before saying good night, they did a couple of good rounds of chase outside the restaurant.
