Lately, when I look at Genevieve, I see the end of an era. The independence she is attempting to exert, the complexity of her thinking, her physical growth and language development--all signs of her readiness for kindergarden. By Erikson's eight stages of development, she has mastered the third stage of "learning initiative versus guilt" (development of purpose). It seems like she is going back for seconds on the second stage in which a child deals with the development of will, and maybe she will continue to deal with that as she continues to develop in other areas.
Put in a more immediate way, I look at Genevieve and see that my little dependent daddy's girl has grown up into a somewhat bigger I-am-my-own-girl.
Another end of an era has also arrived. That of the secret parent language called spelling. Used to be that if we wanted to have secrets in front of the kids, we could just spell things. That time is going-going-gone. Yesterday at the dinner table, Genevieve requested more food. To be on the same page with She-Who-Cares-About-What-Her-Children-Eat, I quietly and quickly said, "We could do f-r-u-i-t."
Genevieve immediately piped in: "Fruit. Yeah, I want fruit!"
Now I wish that I had a second language fluency in common with my wife. Maybe we'll try Morse code.
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Have you tried the telepathic route yet ... or is she onto that? I remember with my oldest child, one evening I was thinking the perennial question, "What should I make for dinner?" followed by an answer (also inside my own head) "Maybe I'll make crepes ..." when preschool aged Anna piped up, "I want pancakes!" Coincidence? You decide.
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