Unsolicited Parenting Advice #5

These days, Charlie needs a lot. For example, he NEEDS to jump off of every curb he sees. He NEEDS to hold all the groceries in his part of the cart. He NEEDS to eat the cereal out of my bowl instead of the exact same cereal in his bowl. All very valid needs, indeed, and I deal with them on a case by case basis.

Sometimes these needs of his make it even more difficult to leave the house on time. And while I understand that he probably really does need to touch every single one of his toys on his way out the door, the doctor doesn't tend to buy that excuse when you are twenty minutes late and they have given your appointment away. In a perfect world, this would never be a problem because I would be just that organized, leaving plenty of time for all the toy fiddling needs but that is not real life and I would rather sleep to the last possible second than be "ready ahead of time." Since that is just not realistic most days, sometimes doing whatever I need to so we can get out the door on time is what this mama "needs" to do.

Since I know this about myself, I try my best when I am not rushing to make an extra effort to not pull him away from an activity because of my insane time schedule. Tonight, at the end of his bath, I told him it was time to get out and to go push the lever to let the water out. Getting out of the bath is a similar to trying to get out of the house. All of a sudden he remembers all the toys he "forgot" to play with and maybe he should wash his belly one more time and Mommy, since we are just sitting here doing nothing, let me tell you about my entire day in great detail. This evening was no exception. When he swam over the drain on his belly and pushed the lever for the drain. Probably by accident, while trying to push himself up to standing so I could get him out, his hand covered the drain and the sound of the water leaving the tub slowed almost to a stop. He did it again and again, until finally he looked up at me with a giant smile that seemed to say, "Mom, I just discovered the coolest thing ever!"

When the tub finally drained and I did get him out of the bath I asked, "Charlie, what happened when you put your hand over the drain?"

"It was going little."

"And then when you took your hand off?"

"It got big."

A completely organic discovery by my two-year-old about how a drain works, all because I gave him an extra 30 seconds to figure it out. So awesome.