Day 579 - Independence Daze

Already Emma seems to be becoming her own woman. And by woman, I mean noisy, manipulative, and independent.

Although Emma is much more affectionate than Andrew, she is also more stubborn and independent. Now that she has more control over her body, she wants to complete certain tasks by herself. Little does she know there will be a day when she will have complete control over her body, yet will not want to do any tasks by herself (i.e. teenage years and marriage).

When it is time to eat, Emma now refuses to be carried into her high chair. We must wait patiently for her to take her sweet ass time to climb into her chair. After slowly climbing into the chair, if she can't twist her body around to sit down, Emma will climb back down the chair to start over. If you try to pick her up to turn her around, Emma will begin shouting, "NO NO NO NO NO!" as if she was reenacting the moment when Lisa first saw me with my shirt off (I'm quite amazingly pasty for an Japanese boy!).

There are times when she is playing with a toy, and she wants to figure it out by herself. For example, we have these plastic toys that you can pop together to create a long chain. Emma was fascinated by this toy, but had a very difficult time putting the pieces together. If you tried to take the toy away from her to show her how to fit the pieces together, she would begin shouting, "NO NO NO NO NO!" as if she was reenacting the moment when Lisa realized I was about to propose to her. By accident, Emma realized if she put the end of the toy in her mouth, her saliva made it easier to fit the pieces together. Hopefully she will not think that all of life's problems can be solved by putting things in your mouth.

I realize all of this is natural for a kid to go through. Every parent will go through that point in life when their baby who couldn't do anything becomes the child who can do everything...and that child becomes the teenager who knows everything...and that teenager becomes the adult who wishes he could be a baby again. Which makes quite a bit of sense since we all start and end with diapers. Speaking of which it's time to change Lisa again. I swear, no more Del Taco!