Squeaky clean

Completely out of the blue a week ago, Little C announced that he’d like to try having a bath. His last bath being 10th June 2022 (can you believe I know that exact date). Since that date it’s just been sponge washing with a bowl of soapy water. Until last week that is.

A week on and he has asked for a bath every night. Even a hair wash one night. He is loving his baths, has new bath toys and actually looks forward to his bath. He plays water drums, splashing his hands making beats and lying down completely pretending to be a mer-man. Who would ever believe this? 

It reminds me of the car issue. Where Little C couldn’t travel by car for almost a year and then suddenly decided to try it again. Car journeys are still difficult and there are rituals that need to be followed and he can still only do short journeys but that’s okay, at least we can go out. 

He’s also had a hair cut at the barbers last month and his nails cut a week ago. He looks (and smells) like a prince.  

None of this has been easy for him but his face on accomplishing these things is just priceless. When walking out of the barbers he randomly said ‘this is the best day ever!’ 

We have also explored some new places, one being the local swimming pool. Not going in the pool, of course, we just looked at it. This trip actually caused some quite severe sensory overload when we got home and was a reminder to not move too quickly with these new experiences. He does want to go back again though to ‘look at the pool’ (but really I think it’s because the lady in the cafe gave him a free tub of ice cream).

I’ve talked about our low-demand parenting method quite a bit throughout my blog. We’ve used our own version of Dr Ross Greenes approach - which is basically to focus on what absolutely has to be done (eating food, hygiene, taking medicines) and all the other stuff has to wait, until they are ready to try it. No matter how long it takes. 

I know I’m not the only parent to question whether it’s the right approach. But I feel now more than ever that it is.

The last little burst of progress has been some crafts that we did a week ago. Little C actually sat with me for over an hour making little clay monster magnets. For him to sit for that length of time, engaged in a project was a really big deal. He wanted a little break - and recognised that he needed one - so he went on his tablet, ran about a bit, had an ice lolly and 20 minutes later was desperate to make some more monsters. We also talked a bit about his fear of ‘doing it wrong’ and I explained to him there is no way to get art and craft wrong, as there is no right or wrong way to do it. I explained that however it looks at the end will be perfect because we had fun doing it and when we look at it, it will remind us of the fun we had. I could tell he liked hearing this as he repeated it back to me a few times saying ‘it doesn’t matter what it looks like does it mum, because we’re having fun doing it’