Mr. Independent

Toby has reached the age where he wants to do everything himself and everything his brother and sister do. He insists on turning the faucet on and off, zipping his own coat, buckling himself into his carseat, booster, swing or whatever, putting on his own socks and shoes, picking out his clothes, choosing his diaper and wipe, and the list goes on.

here is is pretending to wash his hands, one of his favorite things to do

He has been feeding himself for a long time now and is pretty good with a fork, but I like to feed him things like yogurt so that he doesn’t make too much of a mess. He now insists on that too. We are back to wearing bibs, but he is getting much less messy.

note the yogurt high on his cheek

Every morning (an other times throughout the day) he walks into the kitchen, goes to the panty, chooses a box of cereal, removes the bag, puts the box in the recycling bin (just like he sees mom do with the empty ones), and eats, often spilling all over the floor.

The other night he was so excited that I took dinner out of the oven that he opened the dishwasher, got out a spatula and tried to serve himself food. He is obsessed with the dishwasher. He tries to unload it whether the dishes are clean or dirty. He constantly opens it, but if I need it open to load or unload, he closes it on me. He tries to hold his own with the outside toys and fights over the big kids’ bikes. He has his own car and “motorcycle”, when he rides he tries to remember his helmet.

In the last month he has become a huge climber (thankfully not out of his crib). He likes to scale everything in site. We set up a ladder last weekend and in one second he was to the top. Yesterday, I went to the bathroom and came out to him on top of our sideboard.

the tears only began when I turned to get the camera to document, he was quite content that he got his two phones

Since many of the things he insists on doing, he really cannot do for himself, his independence can be very time consuming, but we laugh because now that Caleb and Lucy can do things for themselves, they would rather we do it for them.