Getting Dressed

Maddie is two and a half years old. Plenty old enough to dress herself, in my opinion. Too many people baby their kiddos and do everything for them. I know someone that went to the pediatrician with their four year old and when the doc was going through that random checklist of skills the kid should have, the mother was floored that a four year old should be able to dress themselves. Seriously?? Her life must suck rocks. It would be like having a four year old infant. I am a firm believer that if you take the time up front to teach a skill, you will reap the rewards for a long, long time. A parents job is to teach their child. Therefore, I am well aware that teaching Maddie to dress herself will take a while. She's been doing fantastic with her shirts for months. If I get it the right direction and set lightly on her head, she can get it on and get her arms in. Since we keep toying with potty training, she is getting good at pulling pants on. We moved to training pants from diapers last week, so we've crossed that hurdle too. The last remaining obsticle to independence was getting access to her clothes. Ben refused to trade dressers with her. His is perfect. Small. Light weight drawers. Easy to open and close. Maddie has a huge, old antique dresser we got from grandparents when I was a little girl. It's ancient and heavy. The bottom drawer is the only one she has a hope of opening and the two handles are too far apart for her two little arms to reach to pull the drawer out. Finally, I decided she could open it if I just taught her a little trick. For several days, instead of opening her drawer for her in the morning to choose her clothes, I would verbally instruct her to pull the left handle a little bit, then pull the right handle a little bit, now pull the other one, back and forth until it broke free and started to come out. Every time she pulled one side or the other and it moved just a tiny bit I'd cheer and tell her she was doing a super amazing job!! She was always proud when it finally came open and her reward was picking her own clothes, which she is reveling in. Everything pink goes first. This morning we got breakfast and had no where to go so I didn't push the kids and let them play in their pajamas for a while. Maddie went upstairs to play. Pretty soon, she came downstairs. She had taken her feet pajamas off by herself, opened her dresser and chosen a pinkish-purple pair of pants and got them on all by herself. She was so proud! She came down and went straight to me and said, "Look Mom! I did my pants all by myself!" What a pleasant surprise. Apparently, the shirt was more than she could handle, but I'll take it! It's fun to see your kids achieve new things and be proud of it too! It made Maddie feel like a million bucks.