Month: March 2013

Okay, so my irrational childhood fears came back to haunt me not long ago.  I was fairly certain that as an adult (who has plenty of irrational fears, anyway) my silly fears of monsters was behind me.  However, it would appear that I was somewhat mistaken…

So, as a child, when I would take a bath I was frightened to let the water out while I was still in the tub because I thought the monster who lived in the drain may come up and get me.  So, I would always step out of the tub before unplugging the drain.  This crazy irrational fear caused me to continue taking only baths for much longer than most of my peers.  But, I somehow overcame this fear and was able to shower like a normal human being.  Since I have not worried about the monster who lives in the drain for quite sometime, I felt that this would never come back to haunt me…

Last week, while I was bathing Lily, I discovered how wrong I was.  For her birthday, her great aunt Loretta gave her some tubby crayons.  She found them one day, so I opened them up for her to see what they are and told her she could bring them in the tub with her when it was time for a bath.  So, at bath time, I put the crayons in the tub and showed her how they work.  She, being only 13 months old, of course, tries to eat them.  But, she did get the hang of it toward the end of her bath.  She made a lovely masterpiece on the side of the tub.  When I wiped off the crayon it started changing the colour of the water.  Her bath was cut a little short because the crayons made the water look so gross, I had to drain the tub.  I pulled the plug.  Then, I felt it.  I became a little anxious.  I was watching Lily who was very curious about the water running down the drain and remembered my fear from growing up.  It took all my strength not to pull her out of the bath at that very moment; not to tell her to stay away from the scary, evil drain monster.  She just kept getting closer to the drain, and I kept biting my tongue.  I did say something when she tried to put her fingers in the drain – I tried to sound calm, I am not sure if I succeeded or not – I said, ‘don’t put your fingers in there, it’s dirty.’  Now that I know that this irrational fear of the drain monster still exists in the back of my head I have to be extra cautious when I am bathing her so that I will not pass this ridiculous fear onto her.

So this amazing thing happened recently; Lily started helping me!  It started with, ‘Lily, bring me your block’ so that I could put her blocks away.  I would point to the block I wanted her to bring me, she would walk over, pick it up, walk back and hand it to me.  She followed this simple type of instruction for a couple of weeks when it occurred to me that she could help with other tasks.  ‘Lily, do you want to help Momma with the laundry?’ She nods her head yes and walks to the mud room.  She helps put the clothes in the washer, she helps move the clothes from the washer to the dryer, she helps put the clothes from the dryer into the basket.  She also likes to push the buttons, but that task is a little trickier, there are so many buttons and she never wants to push the one I ask her to push.  The other day, I said, ‘Do you want to help Momma put wood on the fire? And by help, I mean stand nearby and watch while Momma puts wood on the fire.’  She once again nodded her head yes.  I brought her out to the living room and put her down on the floor near the wood pile, I grabbed a log and went to the wood stove to add it to the fire.  When I looked over to see what she was doing, she had walked over to the wood pile and was trying to pull a good size log down off the pile.  I quickly stopped her, I didn’t want her to pull it off the shelf and hurt herself, but I did give her a smaller log and asked her to bring it over to the wood stove for me so I could put it on the fire.  She very proudly carried the small log from the wood pile to the wood stove, handed it to me and watched as I put it on the fire.  This was not a task I really thought she could help me with, and yet, she did.  A couple of days ago, she was playing in her room while I folded her clothes and put them away.  This always takes longer than she can handle, but she does her best while I finish up the task.  This day, I decided that I didn’t want to leave her room in the state we tend to leave it in after putting her clothes away.  I got down on the floor and said, ‘Can I help you put your toys away?’  She nodded her head yes.  First we gathered up her blocks, she put them in their bag one by one, when they were all away I zipped up the bag and put it away – she was not sure about me putting it away.  I quickly called her to another task, her shape sorted and all the shapes had to be put away.  We found all the shapes and I helped her find the corresponding holes for each shape.  Once it was full I gave it to her and asked her to put it on the shelf, she knew exactly where it went and took it over.  I asked her to put her books away and she put them on the book shelf, I asked her to put her sleep toys away and she put them in the basket, I asked her to put her blocks away and she put them in the appropriate basket or shelf.  She knew exactly where all her toys were meant to go and as long as I kept pointing out toys that were out of place she was quite happy to tidy them up.  I love that she has turned into a little helper, she loves to help me with any task (even if the only way she can help is by watching).  Things take a lot more time to get them done now, but it’s much more fun with a little helper and we really have no deadlines for any of these things, yet.