My busy girl

We've been home with Melinda almost 5 weeks and in that time she has blossomed. She is a BUSY little girl, determined to keep up with her 3 year old brother, into EVERYTHING she can stretch her little self to reach. She studies everything we do - how to make coffee, how coffee brews, how to load the dishwasher, how to remove everything from the dishwasher, how to remove toilet paper from the roll. Then practices what she has studied. She smiles and giggles and laughs regularly. She is so proud of her every accomplishment.

In the early days of agreeing that sleep had its benefits, she demanded that I stay with her while she fell asleep. It took me a few days, but eventually I realized I could sit and read while I waited for the eyes to close. This revelation coincided with the arrival of a fabulous book, Montessori from the Start: The Child at Home, from Birth to Age Three.

Alex is thriving at his Montessori school and this book set me to implementing Montessori practices at home. We've remodeled their room - removing the bed and crib and installing a child bed for them to sleep on. There are a couple of low shelves, with a few playthings on them, which are safe to explore when they are alone in their bedroom. In addition to the room remodel, I have been allowing Melinda to do many things for herself - things I would have thought she was too young for the past. She is learning to drink from a small cup, holding her own spoon at meals, sitting on a small chair at the small table where Alex eats during snack time. I'm carrying her a lot less than I might have. I put away all the toys that were not being played with, to reduce the clutter and make for a more peaceful and inviting space. Melinda spends most of her time these days working on open/closed and in/out - opening things and putting things into the open container, closing the container, opening the container and taking things out of it. So the Tupperware drawer contains everything she needs. The basic idea for the Montessori baby is to encourage self-confidence by encouraging self-sufficiency, rather than encouraging dependency by sending the message that Mom needs to do everything for you. It in no way detracts from the attachment and bonding work that we're also doing in these early weeks at home. In fact, I think the joy she gets in mastering new tasks has helped her relax and that has helped her bond well with us. It's an interesting shift in mindset, from the mom who takes care of everything to the mom who supports their growing abilities to do for themselves. But it is one that I can see is already, in a couple of short weeks, giving her a firm foundation for the years to come.