Autumn has really been exercising her independence lately. Enough that Keith keeps thinking she's going through the "Terrible Twos" four months early. So I figured I'd look through "The Secret Lives of Toddlers" to see if anything in there mentions the kind of behavior she's displaying. And I got distracted by a different chapter: "Why do toddlers cooperate in slow motion?"
It opens with "If there is one privilege of early childhood I covet as an adult, it's a toddler's right to exist in her own, self-regulated perception of time. Within the bounds of their parent-controlled schedules, toddlers have the luxury of following their fascinations, sometimes racing at breakneck speed from one experience to the next; sometimes lingering over one toy, one concept, one new skill for hours, or even days."
Isn't this the truth? When they want to dawdle, it seems we want to go. When they want to go, we want to dawdle. This morning, it seemed to take Autumn and I five minutes to go down the stairs from the first floor to the basement. It always takes a little extra time because she'll stop halfway down the steps, point at the big windows in the basement and say, "'side. Walk." At that point I have to tell her we're not going for a walk outside. We're going in the car to school. Often, she'll also point at the video game controllers and say, "Dada." I tell her, yes, those are Dada's toys. And of course she must carry her own lunch bag and hold on to the railing herself, which means I just have to slowly back down the steps, prepared to catch her if the need arises.
Today, too, she stood at the top of the steps saying "bye" until I asked Daddy to come to the steps so she could see him and say goodbye. Meanwhile, I'm thinking of getting her to school and me to work.
In the evenings, she could spend loads of time visiting the neighbor's dog. She squats down next to the dog and she says "Dee Dee" (the dog's name) or "doggie" until we ask her to say goodbye. Yet if I want ever want her to sit patiently, she wants to run around in circles, exploring.
The book says we should not call our kids lazy or slowpoke. It suggests giving a five minute warning when we're going to need them to stop with a beloved activity. And it suggests making a game out of speeding up, racing them to get from one place to the next or asking them to beat their record for how fast it takes them to get dressed.
It all amazes me now that I think about it. Every parent remarks that their kids are growing up too fast. Yet when they're little, we try to hurry them up and not let them take that time they need to grow. And on the flip side, while we want them to develop independence, we also try to make them conform to our lifestyle, making them sit still instead of exploring.
Doesn't it make you wonder when they're really having fun?