Independence

This morning I woke up to a very serious Clementine telling me "Baby drive boat." "Huh?" I asked, still full of sleep. "Baby drive boat, mama. Baby drive pretend boat." And then she hopped in the laundry basket and sped away. This is my little girl these days: she only refers to herself as baby, she is free with her imagination and interested in describing each and every thing she does in a day as she does it. "Huggie," she says as she hugs me. "Baby eat trawberries." "Ride. Baby ride car. Baby ride mama car. Baby ride dada white car." I'm loving it.

After I hauled my carcass through the shower and was attempting to pull a brush through my gnarled hair, I laughed to hear Nate trying to get her dressed. I can't actually transliterate the sound she makes for "I want" (the only time she doesn't refer to herself as baby is when she is demanding something), but it's something along the same lines as "Ow," only longer. "Ow dis" while holding or pointing to anything is "I want this." And apparently that was what she was doing to her turtleneck with mittens and hats and scarves on it. "No, no," Nate was trying to tell her," it's too hot today to wear that. How about this one?"

Dressing herself has become Clementine's new way to control her environment, not unlike "Go away," which she has totally mastered. We usually give her a few options for tops and bottoms and let her put together an outfit, no matter how wacky. I'd be lying if I said I didn't sometimes try to influence her decisions by promoting an Abby hand-me-down (all things Abby = FABulous), but for the most part her decisions stand. This isn't challenging--I like that she's independent. I try my hardest not to make excuses when someone looks at us askance in the grocery store or remarks "My, what a colorful outfit" or "What's his name?" I don't want to make her self-conscious by saying "Oh, she dressed herself this morning," and when I find myself doing that or emphasizing the fact that she insisted we wear matching Vans ("Mama wear shoe. Baby wear shoe. Mama baby shoes.") I feel bad. I'm not going to do that.

But everything has limits, right? Like the fact that all she wants in life right now is to wear the Pee Wee Herman jammies that my lovely, wonderful friend Laura saved from her boys (now 19 and 13) and is letting us borrow. "Pee Wee jammies," Clementine says over and over again as we get her dressed after bath. "Pee Wee jammies." And when we try to get her dressed in clothes in the morning, it's a fit of "No! No! Baby wear Pee Wee jammies." She grabs them as we try to work them over her head, she throws herself on the floor, demanding. She refuses to pick out a shirt or cooperate in any way, and then she whimpers the rest of the time we're upstairs and she's not wearing them. This is the battle I pick, and so far I'm winning. She's cute in the jammies, but they're down the laundry chute now and will never be something she can wear to daycare.