Product reviews, parenting articles, and advice for first-time moms from the experiences of real-life mommies.

I’m trying to make my 3 year old little boy a little more self-sufficient. And since he’s REFUSING to potty train right now (very frustrating), I’ve decided that he can learn how to get himself dressed at least. I seem to remember Kate being able to do that quite well by this age and I’m starting to wonder how much of it was because she was a girl and how much of it was because she was the first child…

So, one morning (when we were already running a little late – what else is new?) I told Ethan to go in his room and get out an outfit to wear for the day. He came back with a shirt and shorts (that didn’t match by the way) in his hands. I told him that it was still too cold outside for shorts and could he please take the shorts back to his room and get pants instead. I thought that this was a reasonable request… One that a 3 year old could easily handle… I was wrong.

I got distracted doing other things, brushing teeth with Karis, changing diapers, etc… About 10 minutes later I made it to his room to check on the pants-getting-efforts. What I saw when I walked in the room made me hit the roof! I was all ready to gripe the boy out when I figured I should take a deep breath. And that’s when I decided that instead of losing my cool, I should run and grab the camera…

Ethan had not only completely unloaded his top drawer of short sleeved shirts and shorts, and not only the middle drawer of long sleeve shirts and pant, but also the bottom drawer of clothes that don’t fit anymore. The pile of clothes on the floor was almost as big as him!

After a quick discussion about how to find clothes WITHOUT dumping them ALL on the ground, we grabbed some pants to go with his shirt and got out the door before those clothes could suck me in…