Independence
4yo Guppy is showing ever-increasing independence. At 3, when he began using the bathroom, he demanded company. Now, he asks for privacy. In his late 3s, he maintained he needed help getting dressed. Instead, I’d ask him if he wanted help, and began offering incentives (like watching this fabulously entertaining OK Go Rube Goldberg contraption video this morning) for him to get dressed on his own. He dressed himself, very quickly.
This morning, I was working on my computer, and heard him banging about in the kitchen. Bags rustled, chairs were moved, and I decided to just let him be. Several minutes later, smelling strongly of jam, he came out to tell me he’d made himself a snack.
What was it, I asked.
Toast! he crowed.
You actually toasted it, or did you have bread? I said, wanting to be precise. (Guppy has had trouble with the difference between bread and toast. Often, when 3, he would ask for toast, then throw a fit when I gave it to him. “But I didn’t want it toasted!” he’d wail.)
Yep, he said, with his characteristic decisive nod.
Later in the morning he crawled into my lap and I read to him. Right now, he’s (mostly) at a lovely age and stage, where he’s still small, snuggly and cute, yet able to do things for himself and not quite so insanely autocratic as he was not too long ago. I’m writing this down to remember it, now and later.