little miss independent

Kiera does very well playing by herself.  She sure can be an independent little girl at times.  This is another one of the reasons we know she is just fine being an only child.  Besides she plays with Berkley who is turning out to be more like a son than a dog! 

Saturday morning Kiera was pushing her Baby Alive doll around in her stroller and playing doctor with her.  While I was making breakfast she comes into the kitchen and starts doing her little gotta pee dance and then runs to the bathroom.  She doesn't come back for like 10 minutes but I can hear her talking in her bedroom.  I sneak up to the hall and peek in and she that she had  crawled up into bed and was having a conversation with herself.  Sometimes she will even use her hands as puppets to talk to each other and boy do they have some silly conversations!

Later that afternoon while I was downloading pics off of my computer she was playing with her train set in her room.  She got quiet so a few minutes later I peek in again and see that she is looking through one of her books.  She did that for like 30 minutes.  I am so glad that she knows how to play by herself and doesn't need constant attention from us.  It would be exhausting!  Then again we taught her how to play with her toys, kids don't just learn that on their own.

Luckily when she is quiet she isn't getting into anything she isn't supposed to.  She has a couple times but I can actually recall what she did each time so it rarely happens.  All it took was the one time for her to open a door or touch a knob and we were quick to explain why she shouldn't do that.  We don't have the wall sockets plugged, the chemicals under the kitchen sink aren't locked, not locks on the stove or toilets.  We have never baby proofed our house.  Hello...it is so much better to teach kids why they shouldn't do something instead of just shutting it off completely.  Remember curiosity killed the cat.   

I totally get how easy it would be to be paranoid over ever. single. little. thing. that could happen to her and I have chosen not to live my life that way.  Of course I am always concerned for her safety and there are times I get up in the middle of the night to make sure she is still and bed and breathing but I cannot let it completely it rule my life.  Basically the way I look at it is that I am preparing myself for the teenage years when she is out at the movies or out shopping or sleeping over at a friends house.  I have to trust that she will be OK and that she will make the right choices for her to be safe.