The children went to an evening slot at the pool yesterday, swimming with Blake from five to seven. They returned home hungry and tired, which works well for getting them to bed at a reasonable weekend hour. I was working away in the craft room, still ambitiously aiming for complete and total organizational nirvana when I heard a sound coming from my daughter's new bedroom.
I went in to find her wrapped in a towel, sitting on the floor, hairdryer in hand, drying her hair. I looked at her and then asked, "did you take a shower?" She said she had. I was amazed, She and her brother for all of their lives have taken baths in our larger master bathroom tub. On occasion, we've had them take showers either by mandate or request on their part, but showers were few and far between because it's much more fun to get in a tub full of water, splash around and play with tub toys.
The room my daughter moved into was the room we planned for my in-laws to stay in when they came to visit. Now that they live in town, they have little need to use the room unless we're out of town and they're staying with the children. There are some things about the room that we did just for them with one of those being a shower and no tub so that my mother-in-law didn't have to step in and out of a tub with her knee replacement.
My daughter has used our shower before, but the controls for ours is different from the one in her new bathroom. She had decided all on her own that she wanted to take a shower, had figured out the controls, and then looked for a hairdryer in the drawers and upon finding Nana's, had sat down on the floor to dry her hair.
We've dried her hair standing up at the vanity in front of the mirror many times, but we found it was easier to sit on the floor together and dry it. This started because she hated to have her hair dried and things went more smoothly if we gave her something to play with while the drying happened. She took that knowledge, had found an outlet along the wall by hunting along until she located one and then figured out how to plug the dryer in. She even toggled the GFI buttons on the dryer before she got started. This wasn't strictly necessary, but she's heard us do it before when the button has accidentally gotten pushed. She might have thought it was a necessary step.
I don't know what shampoo or conditioner is in the shower but she used what she found. She didn't complain, she didn't ask for help. She wanted to do it all by herself. Her desire to be independent and self-sufficient like this is one of the reason's I'm not worried about her future success as an adult. She's got this.
The Big Boy Update: My son is carrying his iPad around with him. For a long while he wasn't interested in anything on the iPad but recently he's gone back to it and has been playing some games. This morning I saw him come downstairs with the iPad, put it on the seat at the bar, and then go get the charging cable from where his father charges his iPad on the other side of the kitchen. He then got up on the counter to use a plug he had seen. That particular plug was much too far away to reach his iPad. I called his name out and put my hand out for the charger. I think he thought he was in trouble for a second. I took the charger and pointed to an outlet right over the edge of the bar that was six inches away from where he had placed his iPad. As I plugged the charger in, he uncharacteristically said, "I love you, Mom."
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: I went back over to our neighbor's yard sale today to peruse for things I might have missed that I couldn't possibly do without. Bryna told me that "Bob" the check-writing machine wasn't intended to be in the sale and they'd put it back inside. Yes, my daughter could use it any time she came to visit. Also, they would like to give Bob to my daughter as a birthday or Hanukkah present, if that was all right with us. I told them she would be beyond thrilled. We talked about what a special piece it was and I told them if they decided to keep it, my daughter would always be happy to come and visit both them and Bob at their new house.
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