Here's my heartbreaking tale of the day.

This morning I was putting on my makeup and Ben was sitting in the bathtub (no water) playing with these little bathtub foamie letters. He wanted to get out and so he started to climb and got himself into the position so that his little bottom was hanging over the edge still in the top, but he had both legs and feet outside the tub and his hands perched on the edge of the tub and he was kind of teetering there trying to get enough momentum to get the rest of the way out.

Obviously, I didn't want him to fall backwards into the tub and hit his head or fall forwards out of the tub and hit his mouth on the toilet so I walked over to him and held my hand out and said, "Here, mom will help you."

Usually his reply would have been something like "Help you", or "mom will help you" and take my hand and I'd pull him out. Not this morning.

He looked at me and said: "I got it." And then, "by myself" in case I didn't understand that apparently he was big enough to handle this on his own. It was so sad! It was the first time that I offered him my help and he didn't want it, he wanted and was able to verbalize that he wanted to do it by himself. It was also a little terrifying to stand there and watch him wobble back and forth because he really was in a bad position, but he wanted to do it so I just stood there. And like he said, he "got it" without my help.

And then of course once he got himself out of the tub he had to crawl back in and repeat the entire process and yes, I offered help again and again he turned me down. Okay, so it's hardly like we just filled out college applications, but he's getting so big!! Also, would it be too much to ask that the first thing he insist on doing "by myself" be walking up the stairs. He'd still rather be carried up the lazy little monster.