Packing it up

Elli loves the idea of being an adult.  Like most little kids she desperately wants to try everything that adults do and is often frustrated by her lack of skill, size or strength that makes it impossible for her to do so.  Today she was hugely pleased to be able to pack her own suitcase and choose her own clothes for her trip this weekend. She is intensely possessive of her suitcase (which isn't strictly hers but which she adopted and isn't giving back!) and when I got ready to do packing today she was very careful to tell me that she could do it for me and didn't need help.  I could see that she was expecting me to just pack her stuff as normal but wanted to present a 'big kid' face and do it herself.

She asked what clothes and how many of each she needed and requested permission to take additional copies of some things, added in some sleeping toys, a video and a book and then packed everything using the special pockets of the suitcase.  I don't know where the idea that the book and video must go in the mesh pocket and the toothbrush and toothpaste go in the solid elastic pocket came from but she is quite convinced her version of the packing process is right.  I was actually pretty taken aback by how efficient she was about the whole thing, she got the case out and fully packed in just ten minutes.

It is the juxtaposition that gets me.  One minute she is angry that the parcel that arrived was for Wendy instead of her and so she spends fifteen minutes on the floor screaming and thrashing "I want a parcel for me!" and then she goes and acts very grown up the next.  I never know what to expect.  I suppose it isn't any more crazy than an adult who displays otherwise good judgement and then talks about being able to beat the slot machines in Vegas or how a book about the bloody conquests and sacrifices of desert nomads a few thousand years ago contains Ultimate Truth.  People can be very competent and very bizarre at the same time.