My daughter, the helper

We seem to have moved into a new development in toddler-hood lately: the “helping” stage.

My daughter likes to help me do everything. If I’m putting together a shoe rack, she hands me the pieces to assemble. (Though I may not need the piece she hands to me.) If I am cooking in the kitchen, she pulls out utensils so she can make a side dish. (I may need those utensils, or I may trip over the whisk she’s left in her wake.)  If I’m doing the laundry, she will throw clothes into the hamper, or into the washer. (Usually clean clothes.) If I am putting her books back on the shelf, the shelf from which she has ripped every book down only moments before, she will pick up a book and try to shove it back into place. (I can put every book back in the time it takes her to attempt one). And after seeing me throw a can into the recycling bin, she will put in (or take out) all sorts of things.

I should mention that my daughter isn’t just a helper. She’s a noticer. If something about her environment changes, she investigates immediately. If there’s a new toy in the room, or the furniture’s been moved, or daddy just finished using whatever implement for the first time in a while, then she must explore the change. This is fun to observe, in theory, but it means that it’s difficult to accomplish anything with her underfoot. She’s just exploring and trying to understand her environment, but it can be frustrating when she gets in the way.

It’s a fascinating combination of developments that she’s going through -- she helps, she mimics, and she openly, intentionally pushes boundaries and defies limits.

Last week, I yelled at my daughter. I lost my cool, as she pulled out yet another bottle or cardboard box out of the recycling bin after I told her not to for the 20th time that day. It bothers me that I don’t even know what it was. I’m sure she’s forgotten the evil roar that came out of my mouth, but I haven’t. I probably never will.

I constantly have to remind myself that she is a person with agency. She makes choices, most of which are based on her environment and how other people interact with it. She is intensely curious because she has agency -- for the first time in her life, she can make a choice and act on that choice. It must be incredibly hard to restrain herself.

For example: imagine discovering as an adult that you can fly. Then imagine two others humans, more than five times your size, telling you that you aren’t allowed to fly. These giant adults are very nice to you -- they feed you, play with you, clothe you, kiss you goodnight. You know that the biggest consequence of your defiance will be their disappointment.

That disappointment would mean a lot to you, wouldn’t it? But you’d still fly sometimes, wouldn’t you? I would. I’d figure that my giant protectors would forgive me eventually.

I think that’s how toddlers must feel, and I keep forgetting. And when I forget, and when I’m tired, I get frustrated. And that’s not her fault.

It’s hard not to cross the anger line. I have agency, and I have rules about how my house operates. When something about the environment that I’ve built changes, it’s hard to keep myself from intervening.

Man, I’m no better than a toddler.

The end of storytime?

My daughter and I might be done with library storytime, and it’s forcing me into an unexpected existential crisis.
For the last couple of weeks, I’ve felt out of sorts, out of sync and unsettled. I think it’s because I’m missing Mr. Chufo and the Tuesday morning storytime at the downtown branch of the Denver Public Library. You see, Mr. Chufo got a promotion, which means he’s working at another branch. That’s great for him, and sad for the storytime regulars (and all the newcomers, too, if I’m being honest). But what has me feeling even more out of sorts is the fact that we’ve had to stop going to Tuesday storytime altogether.

My daughter never stops moving. At home, this is a fact I must deal with but can control to a certain degree. But when we get to the library, I have to play a non-stop prevent defense.

Over the course of 25 minutes (the length of storytime), Eleanor will:

• Make a mad dash for the exit (6x) 
• Grab other, smaller children’s copies of the storytime books (5x) 
• Grab other, smaller children’s toys, binkies, etc. (4x) 
• Lunge for the guitar/ukelele while it is being played by the storyteller (3x) 
• Attack the life-sized teddy bear (3x) 
• Beg other parents for food (2x) 
• Leave Daddy out of breath from chasing her and from saying sorry to other parents for the whole 25 minutes (1,000,000x) 

This is (mostly) normal toddler behavior, I gather, though it sure seems like my slightly late walker is making up for lost time during her earlier, immobile months. People like to say, she’s “busy.” That’s absolutely true. She is very good at entertaining herself by reading every book in the house, taking every toy out of her toy chest, every DVD off the shelf, every utensil out of every kitchen cabinet she can reach, etc. (I use etc. here because I’m getting exhausted just listing all the ways that my daughter spends her time). People (including me) get tired just watching her go for only five minutes. Sometimes she literally just runs around in circles.

But this newfound “busyness” has me feeling a bit lonely. In a way, I feel like I’m losing the communities (like the library) in which I felt safe and connected. It might be different if my daughter were talking to me, but she’s too busy exploring every nook and cranny of the reachable universe for a climbing, 33-inch-tall 16-month-old. It’s a hard realization, knowing that we have to establish a new routine, filled with new people and new situations in which I have to be social with people I don’t know.

I spend these days trying not to live in a perpetual state of exasperation. It’s a fun word for a frustrating state of being -- it feels like a combination of exhaustion, a realization that you exist solely to set limits for your curious, speed-demon toddler, and a constant seeking of a moment’s peace where you’re not making sure she doesn’t stick her finger in a socket or wrap an electric cord around her neck (seriously -- I’m not exaggerating!).

***

And then I took her to a gymnastics class. We won’t talk about the ridiculous exhausting afternoon that followed the gymnastic class. That nightmare was filled with a constant stream of reading the same books again and again and deliberate defiance of boundaries, climbing on furniture and running down the street (thankfully, she at least agrees to stay on the sidewalk most of the time).

It’s hard to describe Eleanor’s glee at the gym. She was so giddy she was reduced to guttural screaming as she ran from station to station. She climbed, she balanced, she jumped, she hung from a high bar (by herself!); for 45 straight minutes she never stopped. Watching her not-stopping is pretty par for the course, but living in the joy of her movement was one of the greatest experiences of my life. I have never seen someone having so much fun as my daughter did for those 45 minutes. We were supposed to go through stretching exercises and an obstacle course designed to teach the kids how to do cartwheels.

Yeah, right. She broke free from my grip and climbed the first foam block she could find.

What a relief it must be to a toddler that she can move! She can walk, run, climb, twirl, hang, jump. For the first time in her life, she can really MOVE! She begins her life in a 3D world and takes her place among the adults, in a way. It’s so hard to imagine how huge the transition to walking must be for toddlers.

This afternoon, when I could no longer contain/entertain my not-stopping toddler, we went for a walk. Eleanor ran down the sidewalk as she normally does, but she stopped in front of a neighbor’s house, where a man retrieved a wheelchair from the trunk of his SUV and wheeled it into the house. She stared at what he was doing for a long time.

So did I.

Managing an active child is hard, exhausting, and terrifying. But next time I find myself getting exasperated, I will remember her joy and be grateful for her movement.