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Show The ll can do it mvself" stage "Umm...nopc." And so on. The combination that he finally comes up with is never dull. Some days he settles for a bow-tie and a pair of shoes. Other days he wears overalls, cowboy boots, and no shirt. If he feels like going all out, he wears a striped sweater and a checkered pair of pants. I k 1 t KEVIN CUMMINGS Correspondent It's been fun watching my son grow up. When we first got him home, all he could do was lie on the ground, eat and squirm. I called this his "slug stage." It wasn't long though before he learned to sit up and started to crawl. This was the important stage known as the "time to move all the breakable objects out of his reach." Crawling led to walking which was called the "our home now has a high-water mark" stage. Somewhere in there he learned to talk which was called the "end of peace" stage. The newest development de-velopment is the "I can do it myself my-self stage. At first this sounded great. I went to dress him and he said, "I can do it myself!" No problem, I thought. I'll just stand back and watch. I quickly discovered that, for a 2-year-old, dressing can be a full day's work. First, he has to carefully careful-ly consider each item of clothing in his dresser. "Would you like to wear the red sweats?" I ask. He stares at them for a moment. With all the concentration concen-tration he puts into it, you'd tliink I'd asked him to come up with a ! plan for world peace. At length he , says, "I don't think so." ' How about jeans and your Mickey Mouse tee-shirt?" myself! I do it myself!" he reminds me. Then he puts on a face that says. Dad, for a guy who went to college, you're none too bright are you? After ten minutes of fiddling about with the laces, he holds out his foot and says, "You do it." He's also learning independence in other areas. He once demonstrated some of this knowledge knowl-edge during a "nap." The light in his room began to blink. A small voice said, "On! Off! On! Off!" I went in and found him perched on his chair flipping the light switch back and forth. "I can do it myself! my-self! 1 he explained. Unfortunately, his new-found independence in-dependence has led to an argument or two. At dinner he wants to pour his own milk. If I so much as touch the milk jug, he says, "I can do it myself!" This leaves me with two options: (1) I can go ahead and pour the milk and spend the rest of dinner listening to him cry or, (2) I can let him pour the milk and then spend the rest of dinner cleaning up the table. Most nights I settle for the second option. It takes less time than the first, and my cat licks up whatever milk lands on the floor. Every day my son learns to do something new. I can't wait for the next thing he learns to "do myself!" my-self!" Things like picking up his toys, putting away his books, throwing throw-ing clothes in the hamper... ft Selecting the day's wardrobe is only the first part of the process of getting dressed. Typically, the procedure pro-cedure goes something like this: Put on shoes, attempt to pull pants over shoes, discover that pants don't fit over shoes, remove shoes, put on pants, put on shoes, discover that pants are backwards, attempt to pull off pants, discover (again) that pants won't fit over shoes, remove shoes, remove pants.. .and so on. He can have hours of fun with just his pants and shoes. The best part is watching him try to tie his shoes. I always offer to help and he always refuses. "I do it |
