identity

While I am reading A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, it is interesting to see Johari's development of her "ego". She is working out the identity roles and the world of "mine". She tries on many different roles. She will say, "Me Baby" almost every day particularly in late evening. And then proceed to act out being a baby, crawling around and narrating all of the baby's needs to me. "Baby tired." "Hold you baby." "Baby need apple." Then other times, "Me Mommy." She is mothering her many children. She will then narrating the needs of her children. "Baby needs mama." and hold her baby close to her. Other times, she will have her head wrapped with something and say, "Me Grandma." Or walk in a funny way and be a grandma. I am not sure where is got this definition for this role. Sometimes it is "Me Boy." She seems to claim being a boy more often than a girl or maybe I just notice it more. Sometimes she says, "Me Boy Girl." Some combination of being a boy and a girl, I guess. "Me Doctor." then she proceeds to bandage someone up.
She also seems to be watching details of style. One time while Kevin and Olivia (Nawo's cousins) were here staying at our house, she said she needed socks on when she hadn't worn socks in weeks. I realized that Kevin was wearing socks around the house and so she had decided she wanted to too. Another time, we were getting ready to take Kevin and Olivia somewhere and I was helping Johari put her sweatshirt on. When she got it on, she immediately said, "No Zip, Mama." I looked around and saw that she was eying that both Kevin and Olivia had on sweatshirts that were not zipped up because every other time she wants her sweatshirt zipped right away. This time she saw what the style trend was and wanted to try it out. Even yesterday we were walking down the street and across the way there was a girl walking her dog. She had on jeans with a ripped knee. Johari asked what was on the girl's knee and I explained. Then Johari told me that she had a rip in the knee of her pants.
Although she may try the trendy styles out, she is not stuck the roles being exclusive....heels go with hard hats. Mix it up! Why not? Challenge it.
Johari likes to play catch with the ball and is working on her dribble. She also likes a late night game of frisbee while bouncing on the bed.
We start working on recording our voices on a little digital recorder that we borrowed from my mom. We are working on some renditions of "Twinkle Stars" and "Wheels on the Bus". When she heard my voice, she said to me, "That Jill, Mommy." I thought that was an interesting thing to tell me. When am I Jill? When am I Mommy?
For the longest time she was telling me that she wanted "monkey cheese". I tried to give her every kind of cheese to figure out what it was that she meant but I couldn't seem to get it right. I finally realized what she was talking about.....MAC N CHEESE! How silly of me to take so long to realize but at least I've got it now.
Yesterday she was wearing this bib around her waist...yes it fit but it BARELY fit around her waist. Anyway while she was wearing it, she decided it was her Ergo and that she was carrying Ahdji-oudjou in her bib Ergo and nursing her as she walked along. Imagination is amazing when it isn't stifled.