Toddler independence is a pain at the best of times. Their desire to ‘do it myself’ always means taking sooooo much time. However, when you are trying to get four kids ready and out of the house by 8:40am it is just a catastrophe (as they say on Furchester Hotel – cbeebies is always in my thoughts). It’s a constant toss up between being late and letting the twins try to do things themselves.
They are so keen to be independent and I hear all the time ‘I do it myself’. They get so frustrated when I won’t let them do it but it can take 15 minutes to put on a shoe.  We just don’t have that time in the mornings. The kids are up by 7am so we have 2 hours to get up and ready. It seems though we still have to rush even with 2hrs. Not least because we all (not me as I rarely get to have breakfast too busy putting on ties and harassing children into putting on their pants) invariably spent at least an hour eating the hundreds of bowls of cereal it takes to fill up 4 littles. We are ALWAYS running late.
It must be frustrating and annoying for them too as they are doing so well. Actually I think are pretty amazing to be able to put on shoes, knickers and tights all by themselves at just 2 years old. Both of them are so proud of themselves when they crack a new task.  We get shouts of ‘I did It’ or ‘I’m a big girl’. I know they are just learning and it feels awful to hinder that process, but needs must.  I need them to limit learning to between 9:30am and 2:30pm so that we have some small hope of making the playground line up instead of chasing the lines in under the disapproving gaze of the head!
