It's the Little Things

Being a nanny comes with a lot of challenges: it seems someone is always being naughty, no one is listening, the dog is howling, and the questions never seem to end. (If someone asks me one more time if it is raining outside I just might say yes!) We have recently hit a bout of misbehavior in my nanny house. Boys with attitude and a "you can't tell me what to do" mentality. Their mother does not tolerate that and neither will I. Throughout last week I struggled with my job choice and how happy I was with it.

Last week I also made a deal with Boy #1 (B). B has a certain set of developmental issues that put him at a slight disadvantage in life. He doesn't seem to mind be different or not up to standard with his peers but once preschool hits I worry he will become more self-conscious. When I started as a nanny in January B couldn't dress himself. At 3.5, his twin brother does not struggle with clothing whatsoever (minus being a little slow and indecisive about character shirt choice) so it was quite noticeable that B was behind. He would throw a fit daily that I had to dress him. We are talking a 45 minute debacle of him running the halls and thrashing on the ground while I tried to dress him. I poked him in the eye a few times and he landed on a wrist wrong more than once because he would trip as he tried to run away. It was a struggle and I dreaded getting him ready every day because I would lose nearly an hour of my day to this; mind you I can't watch the Boy #2 or the dog running around the house either. I had to hope neither of them got hurt or ran out the door.

Rather than continue this nonsense I made it a learning moment. B needs to learn to dress himself. That's not negotiable. He is more than capable but had grown very accustomed to throwing a fit and being forced into clothes; he never learned to get dressed. So I taught him how to put on pants. He wears a lot of sweatpants with strings. I tell him every day, "The strings go in the front." Not many days after we started this adventure he picked out pants without strings, looked at me with a panicked face and said, "How do I tell which way is the front? There aren't any strings!" We had a discussion about tags go in the back but strings still go in the front if we have them. Yesterday I let him out of the house to head to the library with his pants on backwards. Some other moms pointed it out to me. Eh, whatever. We couldn't put on our own pants 2 weeks ago and we can now. I'm not going to fix it because he likes this new found independent.

Gradually we have added more clothes he can do on his own and fewer I have to help with. Socks weren't as tricky has he thought and short sleeve shirts are a piece of cake. Long sleeves? We needed a game plan as to how to get our arms all the way up the sleeves, but it got better each time. We made a deal on Tuesday: if he could get dressed all by himself he could make cookies (premade cookies where he just puts them on the pan and I space them out after so they all cook!). I said I would pick out his clothes but he had to put them on all by himself. And he did it! In a record 10 minutes too! He went so far as to put on his own shoes that day too because he realizes he can try before he asks for help. He can do his own coat now too. Sure, the zipper is tricky but if I get it started he zips it right up.

The takeaways in life aren't about teaching others. We all used to be helpless and needed a lot of guidance to get dressed every day. I don't know at what age it is normal to dress yourself but B got there on Tuesday. It was far more rewarding to play a role in his progress than I anticipated. We have plenty more skills to work on but they will all be accomplished, I am confident in that. When you're having a bad day remember how far you've come: starting with dressing yourself and potty training all the way to reading. Sometimes life feels a bit stagnant but there was rapid growth at the beginning that makes the now possible. It's the little things that make the big things easy now.