the little harper that could

harper is continuing to grow in her independence. i hate to say it, but she's starting to grow up and is realizing that she can do things on her own. i can't tell you the number of times we've heard "no" or "harper do it" the last few weeks. we're driving in the car listening to our music together songs and i start to sing along (they are pretty catchy tunes, you know) and i hear "no mommy." she cries out in the middle of the night and michael goes into her room to comfort her, and i hear over the monitor "no daddy." nana tries to hold her hand while she goes down the slide, just to be sure she doesn't tip back and bang her head, but we hear a firm "no nana."

more and more, what she most wants to accomplish seems to be putting on her own shoes. she will barely let me slip them on over her toes in the morning before she's tearing them out of my hands with her sweet little "harper do it, mommy." we may be rushing to get to school, but i allow her the time she needs to try and figure it out. but this isn't only a morning occurrence. any time of day, harper will go to her room, pull out her bin of shoes, find a pair that looks intriguing that day, bring them to the rug by the front door and sit down to don her kicks. a few times, she's become so frustrated that she can't do it, i've seen shoes fly across the room. i completely understand her feelings. adults deal with frustration in many other forms. kids can yell and scream and cry and lay on the floor kicking and all because the shoes won't go on! we would be fired or looked at completely differently if we pulled those stunts as adults.

the other day, as i was cooking dinner in the kitchen, harper resorted to a regular activity and pulled out her sneakers. and literally, for 20 minutes, she sat and sat and sat and tried and tried and tried to get those shoes on her feet. she fumbled with the shoestrings, attempting to imitate how mommy and daddy do it. she almost did it, too, but those are some tough shoes to put on. once she figured out how difficult it was going to be, she went back into her room and found an easier pair. ones with velcro straps. she put those on easy as pie and off she ran, smile pasted on her face. "harper do it!"

i'm so proud of my little engine. when her patience is thick, she can conquer the world.

and speaking of her bin full of shoes, i think my shoe addiction genes have been passed on. i used to be (pre-harper) a shoe addict. i guess i still am, i just now buy her shoes instead of shoes for me all the time. i have stories upon stories of shoes that i hold dear in my closet. mementos from our trip to spain- ones that i loved, but set down and left in the store, only to go back 10 minutes later and purchase. shoes that i just had to have after seeing a friend in chicago wearing them, asking her where she bought them, trekking over to the boutique and buying them in a size too small because i just couldn't bear not to have them at all. puddle jumpers that i bought for our maternity photo shoot to match my umbrella because the weatherman predicted rain, and while it rained the entire night before, it didn't at all that morning. shoes for every wedding i've been to. umpteen pairs of exercise shoes because cute sneakers make the exercise so much more appealing. harper now asks for her shoes by color when we get dressed in the morning. lately, everything has been "purple shoes" even when they're not. can a girl ever have too many shoes? i think not.

~e