Oh, Snap!

Micah is an independent sort of little guy. (Shocker, I know.) This is both a plus and a minus. Every new skill that he learns, ever new social development that he displays, every new life lesson that he absorbs is one less that we have to worry about. And yet, independence is always won at a great cost. It's like a war that way.

We rejoice every time he runs to the potty just because he needs to. (Yes, I'm still beating on that drum, and I'll continue to do so for quite some time. Just thought I'd give you the heads' up.) We rejoice when he comes out of a public restroom holding his pants on because he can't snap them himself. I even rejoice when he shoves me out the bathroom door, closes it in my face, and insists on doing everything himself, leaving me to wonder if he's really going potty or if he'll pee himself in the carseat on the way home. (Which he hasn't done yet, by the way. Big smile going on here for mama.)

What is not so cool is when he locks himself in the mens' room stall and stands in there crying because when he dropped his pants, he remembered that his knee got scraped fifteen minutes ago when he fell in the parking lot, and Sam has to get a screwdriver to unlock the door to get him out. Not cool. (And thank goodness this happened at church and not, say, Macy's.) (If we had a Macy's anywhere near.) (Which we don't.)

Or when, the same night, he's told to go upstairs for bed and promptly goes into our bedroom (where his pajamas are kept) and locks us out so that we can't get him ready for bed nor can we make him go to bed, thereby making us retrieve a key to get the door open. That's not so cool either.

Nor is the whole "hey, I can boss people, so I will" thing he has going on. As he's to be in bed, and I'm out back on the patio enjoying a particularly beautiful evening, he looks out his bedroom window and says, "Drink. Josh." Which is fine, mind you, because with his incredibly limited vocabulary he lacks the whole "will you" and "may I" and other niceties. What's not so cool is that he also felt the need to hold his hand up so that it's framed in the window and attempt to snap his fingers to get Josh to move a little faster with that drink.

What child snaps their fingers at an elder and expects to live?! And where would he even learn something like that?

Independence. Sometimes it's so overrated.