Independent C

Recently it feels that C is really asserting his independence and growing up in a big way. This past week there were several occasions when I felt my first little baby boy slipping through my fingers, being replaced by this Big Boy. Earlier in the week C had a play date at a friend's house. He's been to friend's houses before of course, but someone from our house had always been with him at the house. When we were discussing the plans for him to go to the friend's house, I asked our nanny to pick him up from school and then ask C whether he wanted her to go with him or not. I already had the feeling that he wouldn't want her to stay. When they got to his friend's house the nanny walked him inside and evidently he told her very strongly that she was not to stay and he could stay there by himself!!!

Then, a couple days later I came home to find C playing at home with 3 kids from the complex who are between the ages of 8-10. He was totally in his element, blabbering away to them, showing him his house and his cat and his baby brother and his fish, etc. It was very cute, helped greatly by the fact these kids are just as sweet as C. Then one of them today came knocking on our door to see if he could play (I'm sure he wasn't her first choice, but it still made me and him happy) There are many wonderful aspects about this complex, and I think the opportunity for C and LC to play with kids of varying ages is one of them. I think most kids of that age wouldn't give preschoolers the time of day, but in this complex they often play together.

Then on Saturday C and I went with some friends to a big water park in Jakarta. We had a blast! And C was game to go on all the big boy slides and was much less hesitant than he normally is. Of course I still had to go down all the slides with him, but just the same he wasn't afraid to go down them in the first place. We even flipped over at the bottom of one of them (going down on an intertube) and we both were totally submerged. He was frightened about the experience but he was still willing to go down it again.

So this week has been full of events proving that C is really growing up. I'm mostly happy. Of course I don't want him to stay little forever and especially with having to take care of LC I need him to become more independent, etc. But he's still my first baby and it's a little hard to watch him becoming his own little guy who doesn't need his mom as much as he did before. It's a positive step though, and hopefully the free flowing hugs and kisses I receive from him won't stop for a long time to come.