Crazy about Hand Washing

It's finally starting to feel like fall around here. It's actually cold in the mornings and at night, although it was back up into the triple digits today. We're getting very close to my favorite time of year. It would already be here if it weren't still getting quite so hot. Sadie did get to play in her pools today. I'm not sure how many more pool days we have left this year (I'm hoping less then 10 but that may be overly optimistic. Fall isn't actually here yet.).

This morning I got Sadie dressed to go play out side on the porch and then go on a walk. She was in long pants and I'd wrangled her into socks and shoes (Paul helped, making that infinitely easier) and I was trying to get her into her sweatshirt. When I said "okay Sadie, we just need to put this on before we go outside" she stopped and looked at me and then said "bye" and sprinted in the opposite direction. Unfortunately for Sadie this strategy has yet to work.

Sadie's newest favorite activity is washing her hands. We put a little chair in front of the sink and with a little help she can stand on it and almost reach the water. We help her get her hands wet and then use the pump to put a little foamy soap in her hands. She is crazy about foamy soap. Nani helped her wash her hands three times in a row. The third time Nani didn't give her soap because she'd already washed with soap so many times When I took her in to wash her hands before dinner she cooperated until the time came to wash the foam off of her hands. Then she tried to hide her hands so that I couldn't rinse the foam off. We were both a little bit wet when the foam was finally rinsed off.

After Sadie learned to wash her hands in the big sink I took her over to her toy kitchen and pointed out her little sink, which she takes out and moves around all the time. It was like she was seeing it for the first time. She understood what it was. She spent the rest of the time before dinner standing and pretend washing her hands in the little sink. When I would tell her to scrub them she would rub them together and then I'd say "now rinse" and she'd make them flat under the "facet." Then she collected four binkies and pretended to wash them several times. Once the binkies were clean she took the sink and carried it across the room to her "pillow house." She set the sink up in the corner of her pillow house and then looked proud. The hand and binkie washing was repeated yet again when I returned the sink to its rightful place in the kitchen.

She is so much fun to watch.