Eme Dueeetsef

My baby has been turning into a toddler gradually over a number of months now, but lately she's REALLY begun asserting her independence.

She loves to say "dueetsef" (pronounced "dew EEt sef"). What she means is that she'd like to do something by herself, with no help. This exclamation is sometimes accompanied by an exhortation for mommy to "go'way," as in "Mommy go'way! Eme doeetsef!"

Eme will exclaim in this way over tasks big and small. Some days she wants to try to dress herself, hold her own cup (or my cup, which is usually bigger and made of glass, so you can imagine why I'd want to help her hold it), type on the computer, push play on the DVD player, put on shoes, take off shoes, climb onto a chair, climb into her tutu, dump something out, clean something up, and so on, and so on.

It's strange for me to feel both needed and not needed at the same time. Of course she still needs help, but she also needs to feel, and to some extent to actually be, independent.

It's becoming so that a little hug and kiss before Eme runs to her next adventure is now a boon, when I had been used to it being the norm. It's the time when mommy is increasingly the mean lady who makes Eme wear pants so that she doesn't get cold, rather than the lady I used to be who was actually in charge of wardrobe.

I guess it's time that mommy has to grow out of automatically taking things over that I used to know Eme couldn't do by herself as she becomes more adventurous, and more capable, every single day.

That's my toddler.

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