Alberistics – it’s like stealing toys from a bulldog

A couple of weeks ago when I collected Alby from nursery his Key Worker, Rachel, told me that he was being quite cheeky that day – a trait he has repeated.  It turns out that Alby enjoys pulling dummies out of the mouths of his classmates.  Rachel was under the impression that he doesn’t do it because he wants the dummy for himself but rather that he seems intrigued but what response he might get.  (A yelling child I suspect, Alby.)

Alby has never had a dummy and I worked off the presumption that this was just natural curiosity relating specifically to seeing a dummy in a baby’s mouth.  That was until this weekend however.  I was telling the story of Alby The Dummy Thief to my friend whilst Alby was playing with Percy.  And it was watching the two of them play which has caused me to rethink the situation.

Alby would crawl up to Percy, grab the toy in his mouth, pull on it until Percy dropped it, and then stuff it back in Percy’s mouth.  This game of steal and sutff repeating itself until Alby finally bores and crawls away. 

If I tried to grab a toy from Percy’s mouth I would be instantly engaged in a furious game of tug-o-war as I attempt to pit my might against the brickhouse that is my dog.  For Alby though, Percy is the definition of gentle.

Actually scrap that comment.  Earlier Alby crawled up behind Percy when he was playing with a toy.  The toy got thrown, Percy turned, jumped and chased the toy completely taking out Alby in the process.  Alby performed a faultless teddy bear roll, sat back up again, wondered why his mother and her friends were laughing hysterically and then crawled off to get a toy.  Percy meanwhile trotted back with toy in mouth eager for the game to continue.

So clearly Percy isn’t the definition of gentle, but the degree to which he tolerates Alby stealing his toys leave me equally stunned and grateful.  And begs the question – does Alby look at his classmates and see Percy with a toy?  Will Rachel be telling me soon that Alby has progressed from stealing the dummies to throwing them across the room and telling his friends to fetch?  Or does Alby see in Percy a little boy sucking on his dummy?  An easy mistake to make if you have ever seen Percy in a state of Ted-love.

Bromance.