Miss Independence

Have you seen this girl lately?

She is a crack up!  She's getting to that stage that is so much fun to play with.  She is a huge tease and loves to laugh with her brother and sister.  But, she is also entering that independence stage.  I'm not too sure how I feel about this.

When Brooklyn was born, my pediatrician joked that I named her appropriately.  That comment always bothered me.  What did he mean by that?  She was only a day old and who likes to get poked and prodded anyway.  She was just standing up for herself.  It had nothing to do with her name.

I thought the name was pretty.  There wasn't any real reason besides that.  Sure, my Grandpa Keith grew up in New York and was a tough Irish man (and I loved my Grandpa!), but I always liked her name...plain and simple.

But maybe that stubborn, Irish New Yorker blood is running through my little angel afterall.  Looking back, she came with spunk.  As the nurse was measuring her head (only five minutes on this earth), Brooklyn grabbed the measuring tape and actually ripped it.  The nurse made the comment that it had never happened before (and the two pieces are in her baby box for future proof). 

  

You can see her grabbing the tape and getting ready to pull.

My little girl certainly knows how to figure things out and take care of herself.  Allow me to share just a few examples from this week of her independent spirit.

So Brooklyn has become well acquainted with the computer.  She can climb on the chair in split seconds.  As soon as she see's the chair become vacant, she's on it.  She has drawn on the screen three times.  I'm currently typing through her beautiful red pencil drawing (wish you could see it).  She has successfully taken off the space bar on the keyboard.  I wasn't sure what it was when I found it...until the next time I went to type and you could actually see the light bulb turn on above my head.  Look at her hand on the mouse.  It won't be long before she passes up Grandma CoCo's computer skills.

I walked into the kitchen last week to see my little girl having a good time.  She had climbed onto the kitchen table, sat herself on the lazy susan, and began to spin herself around.  

The discipline had to be done very carefully.  I had to put my hand over my mouth while I told her "no no".  I didn't want her to see me smiling at the hysterical sight.  We wouldn't want her to think that this is an acceptable past time.  (Because I can guarantee it wouldn't take long before the other two tried it out.  And that just wouldn't be as cute).

Which brings us to our last exploration of the week.  As all mommies know, taking a shower with small children in the house can be quite the risk.  Because I apparently have a magnetic force field in my body somewhere, my children tend to follow me from room to room throughout the day.  Seriously, I'll take a toy upstairs and turn around to see children at my feet.  So when I take a shower, the children typically stay within my magnetic pull.  

When Josh was a baby, he used to crawl over to the shower door and just sit there until I was done.  That was until he was big enough to undress and help himself into the shower with me.  Now he's old enough that he tends to crawl into my already made bed (grrr) and watch some tellie.

Brooklyn does the same thing.  She's always by my side.  When I take a shower, she's at the shower door trying to have a conversation with me.  The farthest she wanders is down to Megan's room and plays with the "off limits" stuff while Megan's at school (what Megan doesn't know won't hurt her, right).

So the other day I had just finished my shower.  As expected, Brooklyn came up to the door a few times to converse.  I started to blow dry my hair when Josh came up to me and said, "Mom, where's Brookie?"  I said, "She's playing in Megan's room."  He said, "No she's not."  I then said, "She probably went downstairs." Josh said, "No she's not down there either."

So I turned off the blow dryer and started going through the house calling her name.  I heard nothing.  I wasn't too worried because the front door was bolted and she's not able to open the sliding glass door to the backyard.  But I could not figure out where she could be.  Just then I looked at the door going to the garage.  Oh yes, just another testament to why I hate the handle doorknobs.  

I opened the garage door and could only see darkness.  I said, "Brooklyn?"  And then I heard a whimper.  I turned on the garage light to find this:

She's a survivor!  Even though she was locked in a dark garage by herself, she found her stroller and climbed in.  The poor baby didn't let go of me for ten minutes.  (Note to self: bolt the garage door too).

So I'm doing my best to celebrate this independent and adventurous spirit.  Mostly, I'm just hoping it shines next week when she begins nursery at church!