Saturday, February 5, 2011

Self-Sufficient Baby

Olivia's infancy seemed to last forever. As a child who didn't crawl until she was 17 months old, let alone walk until a year after that, she was carried a lot. Heck, she's still carried a lot.

She also had a few minor feeding issues and because of this, she ate baby food until she was 18 months old. Honestly, I think if my husband had his way, she'd still be eating the occasional jar of baby food.

All of this, combined with the fact that she's my second and last child, and Tom's fifth and last child, well, we've let her remain a baby and less than independent for longer than probably necessary.

This morning, after her bath, I was busy so I handed her underwear and told her to put then on.

And she did!

So, to continue the trend, I handed her a pair of pants and she put those on too.

Socks and a shirt followed.

She'd dressed herself with no help from me. It was awesome.

I know she's four years old and probably should have been dressing herself for years. But let's remember her that her fine and gross motor skills have lagged behind those of typical kids.

She's been able to take OFF her clothes without help for years. But then, it's all about motivation. Why exert the energy to dress herself when she knows that if she dawdles long enough, I'll take over just to get it done.

She's a smart one, that Olivia.

But she's also tired of being the baby.

The girls and I had to go buy groceries today. We ended up going to three different places of business and at each one, as I was getting O out of the car, she informed me, "I'm going to walk."

At 34 pounds, I don't find carrying her to be much of a burden, but walking? Always a welcome change.

I'm loving this independent side of her. It makes me realize that given the chance, our baby O isn't going to be a baby much longer. And that's a good thing.

We definitely don't want to hold her back, even as we coddle and baby her.

She's always been on her own schedule and it appears that we've arrived at the place on the agenda where she's developing an independent streak.

Yay!!!

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