Etta's independent

We are all still adjusting to Addie's class schedule. class from 12-3 three days in a row means no nap for Addie those days. It also means Etta gets woken up from her nap in order for us to go pick up Addie. In addition, Thursdays are tricky because I have Etta's class right before Addie's. Some weeks all three of us are at school from 9:30-3 (and hope Etta will nap ok in the sibling care room). Other weeks Matt is working from home so we juggle the 2 kids between home & school with the one car. Yesterday what that meant was that Etta & I took the bus to school (a quick easy trip which will be much less pleasant on soggy rainy days), Addie stayed home to (theoretically) have quiet alone play while Matt worked from home but he ended up popping in a video to keep her occupied. Then at 11:30 Matt came with the car to drop off Addie. He took the bus home with Etta and left me with the car so I could drive Addie & I home after school plus drop a friend from her class off at home as well.

When Addie gets home from school she is usually sleepy and cranky and wants some alone time. Etta might be a little hungry but she is not sleepy and she wants interaction. So there has been much screaming, fighting, fussing between the two of them. Yesterday Etta followed Addie upstairs and I was worried Addie would get upset and want to be alone. So I asked Etta if she wanted to help me with a project. Etta said no, but Addie said yes so at least they were separated.

Etta was upstairs for quite a while. Being pretty quite. My suspicions grew. A few days before she had emptied the contents of her entire dresser, book shelf and dirty clothes hamper in the middle of the floor. So I was pleasantly surprised when the only mess I found was a few sweaters off their hangers.That was after I had to decide which closed door she was behind. So a small mess plus she had one skirt around her neck, one skirt around her waist, and no diaper and pants on. Not ideal but not a disaster. Since her diaper was off I set her on the potty then asked if she had already gone. Yes, she informed me she had already gone and had already wiped. It was just pee so no big deal. She loves being independent. I assumed she needed to wash her hands still, but then noticed that her shirt sleeves were wet. I asked if she had already washed her hands and she said yes, so I asked her to show me how she did it. She climbed on the stool and attempted to turn on the water but could not reach. So I was not sure where the wet shirt came from but was pretty certain there was no way she washed her own hands in their bathroom.

I took her shirt off and was getting ready to get clean clothes and diaper on her, but decided I would open the other closed doors to make sure there was not a large mess or surprise waiting for me. Nothing out of the ordinary in Addie's room. No mess in my bedroom. But did I hear water running? Yes, there was most definitely water running in my bathroom. And water splashed on the floor. And a tall decorative step-stool had been pushed from our bedroom into the bathroom and up against the sink. Little monkey Etta is quite a trouble-shooter! She knew how to pull her diaper and pants off. She knew how to sit on the potty and wipe after going pee. She knew she needed to wash her hands. She realized she could not reach the sink in their bathroom even with the short step-stool, so she remembered the tall stool, pushed it to the sink in our bathroom and climbed up. Only thing my resourceful little smarty forgot was to turn off the water and put the stool back! I was pretty impressed with her. But also realized that I should not be leaving her alone long enough for her to accomplish all of that. Wasted water, wet shirt and wet floor aside, we could have had a much bigger problem. She could have gone poop and tried to wipe herself and made quite a mess of it. Or scarier still she could have slipped off the wet stool and really hurt herself.

Miss Etta is about to turn 2. A lot of people joke about the terrible two's. Addie was pretty terrific at two, it is a really fun age! But there are also serious power-struggles and desires for independence. Etta has a very strong streak of this. I need to continually improve my parenting skills to figure out how to best curb the disobedience without squashing the curiosity and independence.