Independent

I suppose I should feel glad that my little girl is growing independent. That she feels strong enough to have her own voice. That she’s confidant and knows what she wants.

The problem is that at 20 months she doesn’t fully grasp the concept of volume. The art of ‘quietly’ (not to mention restraint) is something she hasn’t mastered. So she’s loud in her independence. She’s noisy in her strength of character. And Ellie is undeterred in her expression of what she wants… when communicating is something that tends to occur in what may seem to be shouted unintelligible phrases, to the untrained ear.

Don’t all of us want our daughters to be independent and sell confidant? To be strong enough to live and work in a world that can be cold and unkind? So rather than apologize to those who had to put up with my daughter frequently asking, “What’s that noise?” at the holiday concert tonight… and her unabashed applause (at inappropriate times)… and her demands for more raisins…

I’ll instead consider tonight a visual display of an independent little girl already making her way, while safely harbored in the shadow of her doting mother.