"You know I gotta wear the shirt what Dairy Queen gave me."
Of all the life skills Abbie needs to learn, maybe the most important is dressing herself. If she never learns to talk, she can just use a pad and pencil to communicate when pointing is insufficient. If she never learns to use the potty, they make diapers in all sizes right up to adult nowadays. If she never learns her colors, honestly, when was the last time you had to make an important color-based decision? As long as she never becomes a cheerleader or a bomb defuser, she could coast through life without knowing her colors. Dressing herself though, that’s important. We she leaves home for college in 16 years, 10 months, and 3 days, she’ll need to know how to dress to fit in. I know college campuses are open and tolerant places, but only towards those of a different culture or lifestyle, not towards people who wear pants on their head.
For the past few months, I’ve been forcing Abbie to pick what she will wear for the day. Actually I’m just forcing her to pick a shirt and bib to wear; after she decides on a shirt, I pick pants because I don’t trust her coordinating abilities to properly match a shirt and pants. This is somewhat ironic since Ellie doesn’t trust my coordinating abilities either, but I bought those green pants and she has to wear them with something.
The way I make her choose is by holding up one shirt in each hand and asking which shirt she’d like to wear today. I then briefly describe each shirt because missing a chance to encourage language development in her is like missing a chance to win your first conference game on the road after leading by ten with 4:45 left, you just can’t waste those golden opportunities. I say things like “this is a pink shirt,” or “this shirt has butterflies,” or “this shirt is a 50/50 cotton/polyester blend.” Ideally I want her to use her words to tell me which shirt she wants to wear, be it “pink,” “butterfly,” or “cotton/polyester,” but since she still seems to harbor a conscientious objection to most words, I still accept pointing or grabbing as an answer. The winning shirt goes on her, the losing shirt goes next to her changing table and it stays until it becomes a contestant the next morning or until Abbie dumps marinara down her shirt and needs changed.
This process should provide insight into Abbie’s personality, revealing the earliest signs of her likes and dislikes. Instead I’ve discovered that she usually wants to wear whatever I have in my left hand. I use this to my advantage when I know the day will be warm and I hold the tank top in my left hand that’s been shoved in the bottom of her dresser for weeks because it’s getting too cold to wear something so small. The only real personality trait I’ve discovered is that she tends to prefer not to wear pink if given a choice. On one hand, that’s fine by me because I’d also prefer not to immerse her in pink. On the other hand, she has a lot of pink shirts that need wearing someday.
The next step in teaching her dress herself is to actually put the clothes on her body. Sadly this step is too mechanically advanced for her age; like asking a cat to sleep less than 18 hours a day or a daddy to surrender control of the remote during football season, it just isn’t physically possible. The closest she can come is to pull the shirt over her head. When I dress her, I pull the shirt just over her head so it’s around the top of her head but not covering the eyes because she hates having her eyes covered more than an Angels fan hates umpires. I then tell her to pull her shirt on, she grabs the shirt, and pulls it right off her head. She’s a lot better at pulling it off than pulling it on, which means undressing goes smoother than dressing.
After a couple of tries that usually involve me grabbing her arms and pulling it down for her, we move the shirt completely over the head. Then I start her arms through the sleeves, and she’s very good at pushing her arms through as long as the sleeve is loose enough. Besides being able to step into her pant legs, that’s the extent of her ability to dress herself. She’s doing well, but she still has a long way to go to fully dress herself, which would be a very helpful trick to know when the twins arrive. At least I’m fairly confident that she knows enough to put pants over her legs.
For the past few months, I’ve been forcing Abbie to pick what she will wear for the day. Actually I’m just forcing her to pick a shirt and bib to wear; after she decides on a shirt, I pick pants because I don’t trust her coordinating abilities to properly match a shirt and pants. This is somewhat ironic since Ellie doesn’t trust my coordinating abilities either, but I bought those green pants and she has to wear them with something.
The way I make her choose is by holding up one shirt in each hand and asking which shirt she’d like to wear today. I then briefly describe each shirt because missing a chance to encourage language development in her is like missing a chance to win your first conference game on the road after leading by ten with 4:45 left, you just can’t waste those golden opportunities. I say things like “this is a pink shirt,” or “this shirt has butterflies,” or “this shirt is a 50/50 cotton/polyester blend.” Ideally I want her to use her words to tell me which shirt she wants to wear, be it “pink,” “butterfly,” or “cotton/polyester,” but since she still seems to harbor a conscientious objection to most words, I still accept pointing or grabbing as an answer. The winning shirt goes on her, the losing shirt goes next to her changing table and it stays until it becomes a contestant the next morning or until Abbie dumps marinara down her shirt and needs changed.
This process should provide insight into Abbie’s personality, revealing the earliest signs of her likes and dislikes. Instead I’ve discovered that she usually wants to wear whatever I have in my left hand. I use this to my advantage when I know the day will be warm and I hold the tank top in my left hand that’s been shoved in the bottom of her dresser for weeks because it’s getting too cold to wear something so small. The only real personality trait I’ve discovered is that she tends to prefer not to wear pink if given a choice. On one hand, that’s fine by me because I’d also prefer not to immerse her in pink. On the other hand, she has a lot of pink shirts that need wearing someday.
The next step in teaching her dress herself is to actually put the clothes on her body. Sadly this step is too mechanically advanced for her age; like asking a cat to sleep less than 18 hours a day or a daddy to surrender control of the remote during football season, it just isn’t physically possible. The closest she can come is to pull the shirt over her head. When I dress her, I pull the shirt just over her head so it’s around the top of her head but not covering the eyes because she hates having her eyes covered more than an Angels fan hates umpires. I then tell her to pull her shirt on, she grabs the shirt, and pulls it right off her head. She’s a lot better at pulling it off than pulling it on, which means undressing goes smoother than dressing.
After a couple of tries that usually involve me grabbing her arms and pulling it down for her, we move the shirt completely over the head. Then I start her arms through the sleeves, and she’s very good at pushing her arms through as long as the sleeve is loose enough. Besides being able to step into her pant legs, that’s the extent of her ability to dress herself. She’s doing well, but she still has a long way to go to fully dress herself, which would be a very helpful trick to know when the twins arrive. At least I’m fairly confident that she knows enough to put pants over her legs.
posted by Matt at
9:54 PM
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