Growing up, painfully

The mommy cling-on behavior of the last couple of weeks is starting to become clearer to me. I don't think now it had anything to do with my taking him to school that one day other than the behavior started to be more pronounced around then, but I can see it was already beginning before that.

At the same time Brendan has become my little cling-on shadow, he's been alternately chomping at the bit for independence. For the longest time he as Mr. Laid-back lazy boy who was perfectly content to let me dress him, bathe him, even still feed him (not that I gave in on that one). But lately it's all been about "I can do it by myself". He dresses and undresses himself. He gets in the bathtub. He soaps up his hair and body in the tub. He helps dry himself. He blows his nose without me holding the tissue. He goes into the fridge and cabinets and helps himself to food. He fills cups with water when he gets thirsty rather than whine at me to do it. He turns on the TV, gets his DVDs, swaps out the old ones, and navigates through the menus on his own. He turns on "his computer" (my old desktop) and plays by himself and then turns it off. On my laptop he enters URLs and navigates through sites with no problem. He even wants to go places by himself. After our "typerope" discussion the other day, I guess he realized that would be a tad bit impractical. He wanted to walk to the supermarket that's a few blocks away. When we crossed the street he told me I could go home now. I asked him what he'd do when he got to the next corner and he said he'd yell "MOMMY" so I could help him cross that street which is where the supermarket is. Apparently I could wait there on the corner for him until he was done and then help him cross the two streets on the way home. He was quite serious about this.

So I have little Mr. Independent who I figure must then need to revert to the Mommy cling-on for the reassurance that for all that he's independent, he's still my baby. This was brought home to me this weekend when his behavior actually mimicked a baby. He whined like in a baby voice and feigned crying and crawled to me for a cuddle. He wants me to stay with him every night when he goes to bed and a few times has asked me to stay even when I'm clearly not going anywhere like when he was putting his pajamas on after his bath. If I'm there by him I guess it makes it easier to venture away from me.

I guess this growing up isn't that easy.