"I dood it!"

The Boy has reached an age where he insists on doing everything for himself. We are encouraging this, as it seems to promote independence, self esteem and, as an added bonus, an incredible amount of patience in the moms.

This morning, while watching him dress himself, (in the green plaid pants and orange striped shirt he picked out on his very own,) I was reminded of this passage from T.H. White's The Once and Future King:

The new ant put down the [dead ant] vaguely and began dragging the other two in various directions. It did not seem to know where to put them. Or rather, it knew that a certain arrangement had to be made, but it could not figure out how to make it. It was like a man with a tea-cup in one hand and a sandwich in the other, who wants to light a cigarette with a match. But, where the man would invent the idea of putting down the cup and the sandwich - before picking up the cigarette and the match - this ant would have put down the sandwich and picked up the match, then it would have been down with the match and up with the cigarette, then down with the cigarette and up with the sandwich, then down with the cup and up with the cigarette until finally it had put down the sandwich and and picked up the match."

The Boy put one arm through the neck hole and pulled the shirt over his head. Then he took the shirt off his head and his arm out of the hole and put the shirt back on by pulling it down so the crown of his head peeked out the other arm hole. Then he tried again and managed to get one arm through one arm hole and the other through the neck hole. At this point, I leaned in to give him a hand and was repelled with,

"NO IMA! NO! I DOOD IT."

He's very good about picking up his toys, (especially when I explain to him that we won't be going anywhere, doing anything or seeing anyone until he does,) but his method is less than efficient because it involves playing with each toy he picks up for five minutes before putting it back where it belongs. He's getting more adept at buckling his car seat and bike helmet, so it doesn't takes him long anymore unless we're in a hurry. He's adamant about dragging a chair from the kitchen to the bathroom so he can stand at the sink and turn on the water and wet and soap and rinse and dry his hands after using the potty, especially before bedtime. He enjoys sweeping a lot, so I make a point to take the broom out only when he's sleeping, because sweeping to him means pushing everything I've swept into a pile back under furniture where it belongs apparently.

I know the day will come when I long for this time when he insisted on doing everything for himself, and then of course, I will need to learn a whole new sort of patience.