Today I thought it would be fun to wash dishes with Penny. It is super hot here - heat indices over 100 everyday, and really hard to stay outside for long even though Penny wants to. She's used to being outdoors 80 or 90 percent of the day though, so being stuck inside, we run through her toys and activities after awhile. I really needed to wash some dishes by hand in the sink, but she didn't want me to wash them because she didn't want to go play with any of her toys anymore because she was tired of them. So, I decided I would fill the sink up with soapy water and pull a chair up to the sink and let her "wash" dishes. They were mostly plastic cups and small items that it would be fine for her to play with and I figured she could just have a ball filling up cups and dumping them out, etc. I knew it would probably make a mess, but it's just water right? The thing I was most worried about was that she would enjoy it so much that she would want to do it everyday, and I wasn't keen to start that, or that she'd enjoy it so much she would have a tantrum when it was time to stop. But then I thought I can't keep her from doing an activity just because she'd want to do it again (and again and again) or because she might get upset when it was time to be done with it. So, I went for it.
And all my worries were for naught, because she freaked out when I put the cups into the water. Fuh-reaked. She had rivers of snot running down her face, gasping for breath crying so hard. I could hardly calm her down. She was hysterical wanting me to get the cups back out of the water. I explained (or tried to explain through the tears) that we were just going to give them a bath and it's just like her toys in the bathtub and etc. etc. To no avail.
I ended up (after taking her out of the room to calm her down and clean her up) sitting her up on the counter on the other side of the sink and letting her "dry" the dishes with a dishtowel. She still eyed the dishwater suspiciously from time to time and if I forgot and dropped the brush into the water rather than putting it up on the counter when I went to rinse something she'd freak all over again. It was one of the most stressful dishwashing experiences I have ever had - and I swear all I wanted to do was a fun little activity with her.
1 comment:
Poor Baby. It sounds like she thought the suds in the water were "eating" or at least taking the cups away. In her bath when she puts something in the water she can still see it. It does not disappear from her sight. Next time fill the sink with water first and add the detergent after she sees the cups in the clear water. Maybe that will make a difference.
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