I Do It

It's a great thing when one's child tries to accomplish feats on his own. This show of independence displays his burgeoning sense of self and growing confidence. However, occasionally (frequently) a child's desire to be independent can cause activities to go veeeeeeeeeerrrrrry slowly, get extremely messy, or cause accidents of catastrophic proportions.

The first time (and thousands of times afterwards) a child wants to drink out of a regular cup, one should expect massive spillage and ensuing cleanup. The first time he feeds himself, one should expect most of the food to end up everywhere but actually inside the child's mouth. (We are probably responsible for half of the world's food waste at this point.) Whenever a child demands to walk somewhere on his own, one should expect to be really late for an appointment and give up all hope of making it to said appointment on time because the child will only take longer than anyone previously thought to be humanly possible. Finally, when a child is being removed from his car seat and screams, "I do it myself!" and you actually let him, one should expect said child to fall out of the car.

That is what happened today with B. He fell right out of the car and onto the hard, hot ground. At least he was smiling proudly when he stood up. I can only hope we'll be that lucky tomorrow when I'm sure the same scenario will replay itself.

While I applaud B's growing demands for independence, I have to wonder who is lacking more sense in these scenarios...the child who wants to try new things or the mother who allows him to and then pays for it afterwards in the form of cleanup, changing clothes or healing wounds.