All By Myself

Eva is sitting on the toilet seat after racing down the hallway ahead of me and yelling "Come quick, Come quick.  Come potty with me!"  She is perfectly capable of going potty all by herself, and she has crawled up on to the seat and moved her pink Dora underwear to her ankles.  I stand in the doorway and take in the view of the squares of toilet paper littered next to the sink basin and the dust balls growing in the corner behind the toilet, and she points to her purple shirt.  "I put this on at Jamie's today ALL BY MYSELF," she says.  "And these pink pants and these pink undies."  She raises both arms in full exclamation and pumps them up and down in her signature style as she says "All by myself!"

Sometimes three can be exasperating as they insist over and over again on doing things themselves, things you know they can't do, things you know they will get frustrated attempting before a meltdown ensues.  You try to save them (and yourself) from the frustration (and the delays) by doing things for them, and you can only take deep breaths and be patient and allow them to try.  But when they master a skill and declare it to you with such pride and joy, it's hard not to love a three-year-old.

I spend a lot of time complaining to my friends about three, but it's really not all bad.  After all, Eva can now get herself completely dressed in the morning.  Who cares if she insists on red corduroy pants with her purple striped sweater and brown socks? And who cares if she completely destroys the neatly folded stack of pants in her closet and leaves a trail of purple and pink from her bedroom all the way to the bathroom?  She did it all by herself.