One recent morning, 22-month-old Lucy Brancazio got dressed all by herself. Never mind that her outfit consisted of two T-shirts, pink underpants pulled over her diaper, and rain boots. Judging by her pleased expression and proud swagger, she felt ready for the Paris runways. "It's like this every day," says her mom, Liz Berman of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. "She goes nuts if I try to help her, but if I don't get involved, she shows up in something pink, frilly, and totally inappropriate." Welcome to the wonderful world of toddlers, where even a simple routine like getting dressed becomes a sacred ritual with complicated rules. In Toddlerland, food is for smearing, toys are for hoarding, walks are for dawdling, and the only thing better than a bedtime story is that same story read over and over again.
But despite the bizarre local customs, Toddlerland's small citizens find it a rich and instructive place. "Between twelve months and two and a half years, children have an extraordinary hunger for hands-on experience," says Stefanie Powers, a child-development specialist with Zero to Three, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit organization devoted to infant and toddler development. "They're learning all of the time, often when we adults don't even realize it."
Case in point: Getting dressed gives Lucy an excellent chance to practice her fine motor skills -- especially if buttons, buckles, or zippers are involved. "Even putting on a pair of sweatpants is challenging for a toddler," says Powers. "She has to ask herself, 'Do I stand on one foot and balance or sit down and put both feet in at once? And which holes do I put my legs in, anyway?'"
Lucy's passion for pink frills is also rooted in newfound knowledge: "Just as she's learning to sort and categorize animals and shoes, she's distinguishing among people and genders," says Lise Eliot, Ph.D., a neuroscientist and author of What's Going On in There? How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life. In other words, an attachment to a tutu merely shows she's figured out that she's a girl -- and in her mind, girls wear pink satin and tulle.
Perhaps most important, Lucy's getting comfortable making decisions (albeit not always well-thought-out ones), which boosts her self-confidence and reinforces the relatively new idea that she's her own person -- entirely separate from her mom and dad. So it's no wonder that Lucy feels triumphant when she finally manages to get into her favorite ensemble. And that she'll defend her selection with a tantrum should a well-meaning adult try to interrupt and guide her careful dressing process.
Slow Strolls to Nowhere
Amanda Palmquist used to relish a brisk morning walk around her Berkeley, California, neighborhood with her daughter, Kiara, who just turned 2. But these days, the pair rarely makes it to the corner and back before lunchtime. "She doesn't like sitting in the stroller, and once she's out, she stops just about every five seconds. If there's a dandelion, we have to pick it and smell it and talk about it. If a bird lands in a tree overhead, Kiara stops to watch until something else distracts her."
Few among us have the time or the patience to always dawdle at a toddler's preferred pace. But to Kiara, a walk spent picking flowers, watching birds, and indulging in lengthy chitchat about both is more than just a lesson in botany or biology. She's also learning how to make comparisons (figuring out, for instance, that birds fly but ants don't, and that trees grow much taller than dandelions); making associations (the squirrels seem to scatter whenever she gets near); discovering what the objects around her smell, sound, feel, and sometimes even taste like; and building her vocabulary as her mom talks to her about all of this.
Though Palmquist may sometimes find her patience taxed, slowing down to Kiara's pace when they don't have to be somewhere fast is critical to the little girl's learning process. Being able to stroke a silky-smooth flower petal helps Kiara grasp the concept of "soft" a thousand times better than if her mother only described it to her as they whizzed by.
Fernanda Moore writes for both PARENTING and The New York Times Magazine. She was expecting her second child at press time.
