There is such a fine line between autonomy and disobedience when you are four, and apparently, it is very easily crossed. Our days are filled with events that fall into the category of “I can do it myself” or “That is NOT how I wanted you to do it, Mom/Carter/Rose/Dad”…or other similar expressions. It is extremely difficult terrain to get through, because yes, you want to let her learn how to do things, you want her be her own person without dictating what her personality/likes/dislikes etc should be, you even want her to learn from her mistakes. But oooooohhhhhh, you want her to do all of this and express all of this in POLITE terms. It is very hard to tease out the parts that are ok (yes, you can make your own snack/get Storm out of his cage/dictate every moment of your day) from the parts that are not – i.e. it is not what you are asking for, it is how you are asking ...believe me, I have to count to 10 a lot.
She is devoted to Mary Poppins. She plays Mary Poppins, she practices Mary Poppins dances – and has declared herself the best chimney sweep dancer (“I can do it better than they can”)—anyone familiar with the Step In Time routine knows that it is a rather impressive dance number. Carter always has to be Bert, and I always have to be the Mother. Easy role—all I have to do is holler “votes for women!”
We finished reading The Secret Garden—she liked it, but the plot complexities were a bit lost on her. She got the general idea, but the psychological analysis was a bit much. We moved on to The Little House in the Big Woods, and just finished that tonight. She LOVED that one. Completely age-appropriate and fascinating – how they lived in the olden days compared to all of the similarities—what Laura liked to do, how she played, how she felt about some things. And then there were the discipline sections, where it was simply a given that not only were kids spanked, but hit with something along the lines of a whip or a switch. Wow, did that give her pause. I’ll bet it was the same reaction I had when I learned that the mother of one of my friends in first grade hit my poor friend with a wooden spoon. Not only was I shocked and astonished, I was extremely relieved and grateful.