Yes, I Can

We’re deep in the heart of the “I can do it!” phase at our house.

The one making all the affirmations is our toddler, Lucy, who is in the habit of declaring her self-sufficiency several times a day, usually in relation to getting herself dressed in the morning and putting her pajamas on at night.

I’m all for her taking on this life skill, only I wish she didn’t have to learn how to do it while I’m trying to get out of the house on time in the morning. The I-can-do-it morning ritual begins sometime around 6:45 a.m., and ends by 7:05 a.m. if I’m lucky. It can stretch another 10 minutes if the parenting gods aren’t smiling on me on any given day.

It starts after the morning bathroom ritual, where the I-can-do-its usually lead to an oversized goober of blue, sparkly bubble gum-flavored toddler toothpaste being self-squeezed onto her toothbrush. Once we finish up all that needs to be done (or undone, due to the I-can-do-its) in the bathroom, we head to her bedroom, where she gets to pick out a shirt from the shirt drawer and a pair of pants from the pants drawer – I gave her that a few months ago; even if the mismatching sometimes pains me, I hold my tongue.

The new wrinkle in the process is that instead of letting me help her put the clothes on, she now wants to put them on all by herself. Some days, she does a good job, and she’s getting better every day, which is of course the point of having her start to do these kinds of things for herself. The bad days, however, start off with a loud mother-daughter wrestling match. The good news is that the inevitable drama-induced tears are long forgotten by the time breakfast is served.

So until she gets to the point where her I-can-do-its magically turn into I-did-its, helping us move along the morning routine, I’m going to have to start developing my own power of positive thinking to cultivate an additional stockpile of patience.