Little Miss Independence

Elise has always been a fairly independent child - if nothing else she’s always had a mind of her own. Lately, however, she’s been much more forceful about her independence. Of course we love that she wants and likes to do things for herself, but it’s just one more sign that she’s taking yet another step away from babyhood.

Elise wants to do everything for herself these days. The main thing now is that she no longer likes to be carried. This could be seen as a wonderful thing because she is getting quite heavy, but right now it is somewhat problematic in our neighborhood because there is massive construction going on (that will apparently continue for a YEAR) so we have no sidewalks (just mud walks) and there are always tons of cranes and trucks all over the place at all hours day and night, and tons of dangerous looking metal sheets haphazardly strewn overtop of enormous holes. Not exactly a playground for 1.5 year olds. And yet, it’s always “Ellie walk”. The biggest problem with Ellie Walk is that she doesn’t want to hold hands. Most of the time, she down right refuses, which leads to one of us picking her up, which leads to lots of crying and Ellie screaming “NO! WALK! DOWN!”. Then we put her down and she will hold a hand for about 4 seconds, then abruptly refuses and is picked up again - and we repeat the battle all over again.

One of our favorite traditions, reading before bedtime, is also becoming a thing of the past. In the past few weeks Elise has begun pulling the book away from whichever of her naïve parents that is trying to read her a story and say “No, Ellie read” as she proceeds to flip through the pages saying a few words here and there, then the book closes and she’s on to the next book to “read”. This makes story time much less enjoyable for the parents because we aren’t getting any story and she doesn’t want to “read” to us, she likes to sit by herself on the bed, away from us while she’s engaged in her nightly read. Sigh.

In a more bossy expression of her independence, Elise likes to request that you leave the room sometimes so she can play alone. She’ll say “Mommy out” as she ushers me towards the door to the playroom and shuts the door behind me, leaving me standing in the hallway completely bewildered at how I just got dismissed by a one year old. A few weeks ago I was apparently hovering while she was trying to play BY HERSELF in the open field across the street from us. She said “Mommy sit” and once I was sitting in the grass, she went for a little stroll by herself in the field, occasionally turning around to make sure that I was still sitting and not attempting to follow her (and if I did stand, even if not following her, she stopped and reminded “Mommy sit!” with hand motions and all in case I didn’t understand what she’s saying). I am sure that this exercise is just testing to see how far I will let her walk by herself, but still are children usually this bossy at this age?

Oh how I dread the teenage years.