Our Morning Routine–Adelaide

An alternate title could be “How to Dress a Greased Piglet”

So Adelaide is almost two now (how crazy is that?!?) and she is so strong willed. I thought Aedan was strong willed. I was wrong.

She also thinks she can dress herself.

She can’t yet.

Let me tell you how some of our mornings go…

After breakfast, I send Aedan off to brush his teeth. For the most part he is really good about getting ready in the morning and can do almost everything on his own.

Then I take a deep breath and try to grab Adelaide. Usually she takes off running and loves to head for the corner between her crib and the wall. She climbs up on the outside of her crib and just laughs like we have played the best game in the world.

I start picking out her clothes and laying them on the floor. I attempt to tell her to come get dressed, but all I ever get is “no, no, no, no”. I go to the corner and pick up Adelaide, who immediately goes limp and throws her arms up in the air. You know, to make the picking up as difficult as possible.

I lay her down next to the pile of clothes and change her diaper. Thankfully she is pretty good about getting her diaper changes. Although she always wants to help me wipe…seriously, this kid.

Diaper is changed and now the hard part comes. She wants to put her own shorts on. Which would be fine, but she doesn’t want me to help. And she always gets both legs in one hole and then gets even more frustrated. Oh and we have to leave for school in 10 minutes, so there is that.

As she fights me, I put one leg in her shorts. Then as I am trying to stick her other kicking leg in the shorts, she kicks just right so the first leg comes out.

We repeat this 3-4 times.

I finally get her shorts on and I sit her up to put her shirt on. The problem is, she thinks the shirt should go on her feet too. So she lays back down and sticks her feet in the shirt.

I finally get the shirt on and her arms through the right holes. She is over helpful and usually ends up with an arm in the neck hole. That of course is my fault and she is mad at me about it.

Okay, shirt and short on. She lets me put her socks on only because she loves to go bye bye and she knows we are getting close. After her socks are on, she jumps up and takes off. I bribe her into the bathroom to do her hair by telling her she can brush her teeth. The girl loves two things…brushing teeth and washing hands. I guess there are worse things to love!

She “brushes” her teeth while I do her hair. As soon as I am done she promptly tries to pull the clip or rubber band out.

I fix her hair and rush her out of the bathroom before she can mess it up again.

We go to put on shoes. She wants to put on Aedan’s shoes, then when that doesn’t work, she wants to wear her pool shoes. I am the worst mom ever, because I nicks that as well. I finally get the correct shoes on and declare it’s time to leave.

We head to the car. Adelaide wants to take .5 million things with us. You know because I don’t have enough stuff to carry between two kids.

Then she wants to climb in the car.

Once she is in the car, she wants to sit in Aedan’s seat.

Since that doesn’t happen, she wants to climb into her own seat. She needs help. She doesn’t want help. It is hard being two.

I help her into her seat, which makes her so mad. She arches her back making it difficult impossible to buckle her. I finally get her arms through the straps and she knows I have won. She calms down and sits nicely while I buckle her up and close the door.

Piece of cake

-Lauren-