"I need to do it!"

We are in that phase.

Things Rosie "needs to do" include:

Getting dressed (including choosing clothes) and undressed.

Putting her own shoes on and taking them off (we have negotiated the right to help her when she wears the shoes with laces, though for a few days she insisted she had to tie them despite the fact that she *can't* do that yet.)

"helping" me go to the bathroom (leading me by the hand, lifting the toilet lid, closing the door for me, then coming back and closing the lid and flushing. Thankfully, only sometimes...)

Emptying her own potty into the toilet (including rinsing the potty insert and wiping it out, and flushing. Brian flushed the toilet tonight while Rosie washed her hands and we were treated to a repetition of "Need to flush my poop!" for the next 5 minutes, with occasional melodramatic collapsing on the floor) Then, she also "needs to" put the potty back together and close the lid.

Washing and drying her hands.

Pausing her show on her computer and turning off the screen/monitor when it's time to go do something else (yes, she can use a mouse now, and knows what the pause button is, though to be fair I have set the mouse on her screen to be both large and slow, and she still sometimes needs help. She's known what power buttons are for ages.)

Climbing into her chair for meals.

Putting on her sunscreen.

Getting in and out of the car: opening the car door (She can do it if she grabs the handle tightly and then we take her other hand and pull on her), climbing into the car seat, helping pull the door closed, putting on her seat belt and clipping it, then on arrival helping to unclip her seat belt, opening her door (note: this requires I close her door after we unfasten her seat belt ("together"), so she can open the door again), climbing out of the car, closing the car door from the outside.

Opening our screen door from the outside (I have to pick her up so she can reach the handle) when going in the house.

Unlocking the deadbolt (again, she has to be picked up) and opening to the doors to go outside.

Opening doors in general (at preschool today I carried her through the door from the playground into school and then she shouted "I need to open the door!" for the next ten minutes while she went potty, washed her hands, got a drink of water, and collected her stuff from her cubby. One of her teachers stopped by to squeeze my shoulder and reassure me that she will get older and this phase will pass.)

Pulling her blinds up in the morning (has to be picked up to pull the cord sideways to lock them open)

Pulling the blinds down at night.

Closing doors at certain points of the day, such as right before naps and at bedtime.

Turning on and off her humidifier.

(sometimes) turning off the lights in the living room and dining room at the end of the day.

Switching off the bathroom light after tooth brushing. (Tooth brushing happens in two phases - she does some and we do some).

Walking under her own steam, most everywhere.

She is working on buttoning and unbuttoning clothes and provisionally accepts help with that. Sometimes. Similarly with zippers - if we start them for her she can zip them, and she's good at unzipping. She can put all her hats on herself, so of course she must.

There's a lot of sitting on our hands going on while she struggles if any of these activities pose a challenge. It's gotten worse lately because she sometimes asks for help and then changes her mind and complains vociferously if we try to help. It's tough getting yelled at by your kiddo on a daily basis. And it especially hard to push her through on a schedule.

But it's also fun to see her face light up when she succeeds at doing something she hasn't done before. It looks a lot like this:

(whole series starts here.)

And at least we have this one bit of leverage; if she's delaying doing something, we threaten to do something ourselves that we know she'd rather do, and then we start counting to three. "I need to do it," she says, and just after "two," she does. Almost every time.

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