Having an almost-3-year-old has taught me one major lesson about independence: letting Paxton do things on his own (whether by choice or just because he's sneaky and I didn't notice) most often just means that I'm going to have a big and oftentimes disgusting mess to clean up.
*******WARNING******* the following is one of the disgusting ones.
I was making Paxton's lunch today when I heard the toilet flush. This caused mixed emotions of happiness "Yay! He went by himself finally when I was home!" (normally he will do this when he's home with Jay but makes me come with him) and simultaneously "Oh no. How big of a mess did he make?" Heading in to the bathroom I found Paxton standing on his stool in front of the toilet and doing a fabulous job of peeing everywhere but IN the toilet. In addition, he'd pooped first (YAY!!!) but then had to slide himself forward on his seat so he could reach his stool and stand up ... so you can imagine what was smeared all over his potty seat and his bum and legs ... *sigh*.
It's the same reason why Paxton's still using sippy cups. Every time I give him a regular cup, he ends up with half the contents down the front of his shirt. There's no "gently" or "nicely" with him and tipping a cup back. It's full throttle, slam it back all the time. I even bought him some cups with the straw built in to them to try to ease the transition, but he still winds up with juice/water/milk down his front. And then he inevitably freaks right out because his shirt is wet. I'm really excited for him to learn some logic some day and be able to reason about what consequences his actions will have. Until then, I guess I will have my cleaning supplies at the ready!
*******WARNING******* the following is one of the disgusting ones.
I was making Paxton's lunch today when I heard the toilet flush. This caused mixed emotions of happiness "Yay! He went by himself finally when I was home!" (normally he will do this when he's home with Jay but makes me come with him) and simultaneously "Oh no. How big of a mess did he make?" Heading in to the bathroom I found Paxton standing on his stool in front of the toilet and doing a fabulous job of peeing everywhere but IN the toilet. In addition, he'd pooped first (YAY!!!) but then had to slide himself forward on his seat so he could reach his stool and stand up ... so you can imagine what was smeared all over his potty seat and his bum and legs ... *sigh*.
It's the same reason why Paxton's still using sippy cups. Every time I give him a regular cup, he ends up with half the contents down the front of his shirt. There's no "gently" or "nicely" with him and tipping a cup back. It's full throttle, slam it back all the time. I even bought him some cups with the straw built in to them to try to ease the transition, but he still winds up with juice/water/milk down his front. And then he inevitably freaks right out because his shirt is wet. I'm really excited for him to learn some logic some day and be able to reason about what consequences his actions will have. Until then, I guess I will have my cleaning supplies at the ready!
Ba ha ha ha ha! I can laugh because I have a 3 year old...and we're still in the collosal mess stage of letting him have his independence. But, having 2 older than 3 I can safely assure you that it gets better. However, I am still waiting for logic to catch up with them. I think it's a boy thing.
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