Goodbye Velcro

Anna came into the kitchen as I was cleaning up after breakfast and announced, "I am going to learn to tie my shoes."  She grabbed one of my running shoes, sat on the family room floor, and started to try to first untie the laces.  (I never untie my running shoes...).  I sat down next to her, untied the laces, and picked up the other shoe.  Apparently, she had seen the "two bunny ear" method demonstrated on TV, and was determined to learn that way.  She talked through how she would accomplish the task, and tried to make her little fingers work.  I occasionally  provided a demonstration on the shoe I was holding, or a little extra help as she tried to make that one bunny ear peek up through the loop.  We sat for about 20 minutes, she got very frustrated, and I suggested a break.  She stood up and said, "Ok, but I WILL show Daddy today that I learned to tie my shoes."  

When Dad came in a little later, she told him of her plan.  He saw the progress up to that point, and remarked that he could make her a practice board.  As he and I were having a discussion about what needed to be done this afternoon, she grabbed the shoe again (none of hers have laces...) and practiced again.  Suddenly she cried, "I did it!"  We went over to see and sure enough, two extremely big and loppy bunny ears were tied together.  She was extremely proud of herself.  

I thought about how we told Molly it was time to learn to tie shoes when she was a few months younger than Anna is now.  It took her much longer.  If we had waited until she announced her readiness, it might have gone so much more quickly.  Just like people say potty training does if you wait until the kid is ready.  Which I never could do, apparently, because I was more than ready to be done with the diaper thing and instead chose to traumatize my children and probably set them on course for years of therapy.  

But today, Anna reached another childhood milestone with no trauma.  My baby, getting to be such a big girl.