Letting them grow means being okay with strips and polk-a-dots, or something like that...

So I'm one for encouraging my children to do for themselves by teaching them self helping skill. I think it boosts their self esteem and helps with power struggles and such. Banden has been dressing himself for quite some time, mostly from his PJ drawer, but that works for me on most days. That being said I haven't really got around to encouraging the babies to dress themselves and some how they turned two and then some and I was still dressing them. It's just easier in a lot of ways, and there is always so much to do that I just got in the habit of dressing them and moving on to the next thing. I realized what I was doing last week when Spike made it blatantly obvious he was tired of my dressing him, actually he's been doing this for a while, but last week it got pretty bad. I was getting frustrated with him and scolding him and soon enough we had a power struggle on our hands. Then the light bulb went on and I realized I was short changing him so I have been making an effort to let him do it on his own for the most part. Atty on the other hand is older then Spike (by four months) but shows no interest in dressing himself, or being dressed for that matter. He is so frustrating to dress because he will be looking everywhere but at you, and trying to reach for other stuff and wiggle away, it's like trying to dress a big really strong infant. He doesn't care though because I am doing it for him, so I am hoping that him having to do it for himself will help. So that brings us to yesterday, I was washing the dishes and they got the playroom cleaned up before I was done, so I absent mindedly told them to get themselves ready to go outside. I wasn't expecting much mostly just hoping for a distraction until I was done. Bubu found his own shirt and got dressed right away, no surprises there. Then Spike found his own clothes and completely dressed himself...a bit of a surprise. PJ's just like his brother of course. Atty on the other hand...he looked for clothes, sort of, but well he still needs some encouragement. I was pleasantly surprised though, they are all getting so big! Bubu's signature PJ's look, usually he is a freak about matching but today he went the unconventional route. Good thing we aren't going anywhere!

Atty needed some help, but he managed the pants on his own for the most part. He's learning, I'm thinking pretty soon he will have it down.

Spike got dressed completely on his own, picked it all out and put it all on. First time ever. Shirt is inside out and backwards, but he did it and that was all that mattered.

The funny part was the boots, when we went outside they put their own boots on, oh my goodness! Here is Bubu's styling his new look.

...and Atty....

...and Spike...silly kids!

I don't know about you but it's hard for me to watch them grow sometimes and let go of the control. I know it's good for them and necessary, but it's still hard. It just means they are rapidly getting bigger. I still can't let them choose their own clothes when we are going places, because well PJ's at church just doesn't work for me, but I guess at home it's good practice right?