Quick Change Artist

For the past few months, Garrett has dressed himself off and on. He's better at undressing than putting the clothes on, but he gives it a great try. Yesterday I had a splitting headache so we had no plans to go anywhere while I spent the majority of the day on the couch. Tylenol wasn't cutting it. So Garrett was on the lookout for something fun to do in the house.

He spent quite a bit of time playing in his room, which made me very happy. I could hear him talking to himself and his toys, but I knew there wasn't anything in his room that he could get hurt on or do major damage so I didn't check on him as often as I usually would. After awhile of playing, he came out wearing different clothes than he had on when he went in his room. I immediately recognized them as clothes he had worn earlier in the week. Once I went in his room to see exactly what he was doing, I realized that he had dumped his hamper out (which only contained about 3 days worth of clothes) and was mixing and matching the clothes in there, changing his outfit every couple of minutes. Thankfully nothing in there was truly dirty, just worn for a day and needing a washing. He had even gone so far as to change his underwear and socks. I should have known that this would probably happen because that morning, he had dressed himself in the clothes that I had laid out for him, which he has never done before. (I always lay out his outfit for the next day, the night before, when I'm putting him to bed.)

I had thought that he had gotten this clothes changing out of his system that afternoon, but apparently not. Last night, right in the middle of "Lost" (the best show ever!), Keith looks up and says "Why is Garrett's bedroom light on?" We had put him to bed before "Lost" started so that we wouldn't be interrupted. And he can't reach his light switch without using a chair, so something was going on. Of course "Lost" was right in the middle of a good scene and a commercial didn't look imminent, so I did what any pregnant woman would do, I said "Keith, can you go check on him?" He goes to Garrett's room, opens the door, and says "You need to come see this." I reluctantly got up and headed for his room (we don't have Tivo or DVR so don't ask me why I didn't just pause the TV until I was done). There Garrett sat, in the middle of his bed, completely naked, no socks, no pull up, no pj's. Those clothes were in a pile on the floor along with the clothes I had laid out for today. Apparently he had changed out of his pj's, into his school clothes, and maybe was in the middle of changing back when Keith interrupted him. He immediately started crying because I think he knew we weren't too thrilled with this. I told him that he cannot sleep without his pull up on because it would make a big mess (otherwise I really don't care what he sleeps in, as long as he has some clothes on-atleast in the winter, though I didn't tell him that.) I put his pj's back on him, minus one sock, I have no idea where it went so I told him he would have to go without that sock for the night. It wasn't going to get very cold so I knew it wasn't necessary that he have it on.

This morning he woke up early for some reason and started calling me to come open the door around 6:45. First off, we keep his door baby proofed so he can't get out of his room without someone letting him out, when he moves to his new room we won't do this anymore, but I didn't want to take the chance of him wandering the house at night once he started sleeping in a big bed. Secondly, my rule is that we don't get up before 7:30 unless we have to. So I called to him and said it wasn't time to get up yet. About 15 minutes later, he called back and said the sun was out and it was time to get up. I somehow managed to doze off and woke up right at 7:30, so I went to his room to let him out. He had already turned his light on (he has a little lawn chair in there that he regularly uses as a step stool) and was wearing the shirt I had laid out for today, along with yesterday's underwear and socks and a pair of random sweatpants. The shirt was backwards too. I should have taken a picture, but I was still a little tired so I didn't think about it. I told him he looked nice, but we would need to change his pants before he went to school because those didn't match. He was fine with that. He was not as ok with me turning his shirt around to face the right way, but he went with it.

Right before it was time to leave for school I told him to put his shoes on. He said his tennis shoes are dirty (they aren't) so he wanted to wear his brown shoes (which are church shoes, but they went ok with the clothes he was wearing) and I told him that was fine. Next thing I know, he's wearing one brown shoe (on the wrong foot) and one Lightning McQueen croc shoe (also on the wrong foot). I told him he needed 2 brown shoes and he needed them on the correct feet. He tried to insist that he wear the shoes just as he had them, but I put my foot down on mismatched shoes, unless it's crazy shoe day. Somehow we managed to get out the door with all the correct clothing and shoes intact.

I have a feeling this new habit doesn't bode well. I'm going to have to empty his hamper every night to keep him from trying to wear dirty clothes. Thankfully he can't access his clean clothes because they're all in his closet which is also baby proofed. But hey, if I lay out a clean outfit for him to wear, atleast I know he'll be dressed every morning. The clothes may not be facing the right direction, but atleast they'll be on his body.

And now we begin the fully independent streak.