Miss Independent

First, here's a good shot of Phoebe in her 18 month Grogu pants, which she really wanted to wear today, but which I convinced her to change out of because it was quite chilly and, well, we're kind of refusing to turn on our heater at least until October November...out of principle. 

It's not like our house is freezing (it's not even freezing outside). It's simply not shorts-and-bare-feet temperature. So she agreed to put on socks and full-length pants.

She was on an independent streak on Monday...which...really kept me on my toes.

First she got out her paints and her dot markers and made a beautiful picture of a "hurtado" (hurricane + tornado):

To be fair, she cleaned up after herself rather responsibly, even rinsing her paintbrush off at the sink!

Next, she decided to make herself a peanut butter sandwich for lunch. So she got out the peanut butter and opened it and scooped out a big knife-ful of peanut butter and...that's about as far ahead as she thought.

And here she is jumping up and down with said knife-ful of peanut butter:

I helped her get out some bread so she could spread that peanut butter somewhere:

After lunch when we were gathered around the table doing some schoolwork (we're working on learning the Arabic alphabet right now and the kids are doing great), she wandered away. I thought she had gone off to play somewhere, but she walked back to the table carrying a cutting board and a knife.

"What are you doing with that knife?!" I asked.

"I'm cutting up a pear for a snack," she said, shrugging.

"But you are not supposed to use the sharp knives!!" 

"Then why do I know where they are?"

I dunno, babe—perhaps you could just have some self control and not get into dangerous equipment around the house that is purposely set outside of your reach.

*****

This morning Phoebe told me she wanted scrambled eggs on toast, so I went into the kitchen, pulled out a frying pan, set it on the stove and noticed...an egg sitting on the counter.

"Who put this egg on the counter?" I hollered to whoever might hear.

"I did," Phoebe (who was suddenly standing right beside me) said. 

"You got this egg out?" I said in disbelief (our fridge has the freezer on the bottom, so the eggs are pretty high up). 

"Yes," she said. "I got out a stool and climbed into the fridge and got the egg and then climbed down. I was just putting the stool away—that's why I wasn't here."

There's nothing this child can't reach.