We have a lot of routines around here from what shoes are acceptable to getting a water bottle out of the vending machine after daycare. A couple of common routines in our daily lives:
William helps make our coffee/tea/hot cocoa in the Keurig machine every morning. He knows exactly what buttons to push, how to scoop the mixes, put in the cups...all the steps in the process. And lord help you if you skip a step or do what in his mind is always a William task.
William now insists on going down the stairs first, and he has to be at the bottom before you can start down the steps. All goes according to his plan until he decides to be pokey and then Mom circumvents his rules much to his dismay. A fit then ensues.
William eats and gets dressed very slowly while watching Mickey or Octonauts. The eating and dressing is slower, but I can sneak in any clothes or shoes with out notice. William is very particular about his shoes, sandals this year are totally unacceptable. It has to be socks and shoes and he will not allow any new shoes unless he is distracted at the time they are put on his feet.
William has to either help carry in things for day care, or has to open the doors at day care. And it is not okay to have the doors held open by someone else. He will calmly wait for them to go, the door to close and then its his turn to open it.
When getting picked up from day care Adam and him have a routine that he gets to put money in the little vending machine and get a small bottle of water, he then drinks some on the way home and much to his father's dismay starts zoning out and pours out some in the car. So the floor mats are out to dry out from time to time.
When ever we go to Target, William has a milk from the food court, usually chocolate milk, occasionally Mom or Dad also indulge in a Starbucks treat. It started as a way to get him to sit in the cart and not run all over the store and has become a routine. After the milk is drank William has to spot a garbage kiosk to put it in. Garbage bins that Mom or Dad finds are unacceptable, so if you see us a Target, very slowly pushing a cart next to a bin in hopes that Will sees it you will know what we are doing.
While at the grocery store it is Jello that consumes our routine. Suzy got me started on this. The deli counter gives away a free jello cube in a little cup. The thing is that you have to first make it through the produce section with a lot of "help" from William, and then one jello cube doesn't make it through the whole store, so we buy a small container (weighted before consumed) of jello cubes and get through about half the container before the shopping is done.
Out and about bathroom breaks are another fun routine (Suzy, might want to skip this paragraph, a lot of scary germ contact). Momma goes the bathroom while carefully watching for William to get close to the door locking mechanism and trying to divert him if he seems intent on investigating it. William then likes to throw toilet paper wads into the "little garbage" or into the toilet. Some times he will go potty too, but its still his call at this point. He then is the one to flush and open the door. We then proceed to a thorough washing of our hands, where the only help allowed is lifting Will up to the sink if necessary.
As you can see the common themes are patterns, independence, and frustration if the routine doesn't go as planned :)
Okay enough of that, on to the pictures. William and I had fun in the pool in the back last weekend. Here is the many faces of William:
Climbing into Daddy's SWAT armor that he was trying to get set up. Adams SWAT team is working on transitioning to working with the county team, hence the Sheriff logo.
My guys chilling watching a recently downloaded "Winnie the Pooh" movie. It was a hit with William. He watched the whole thing (~1hr) on the floor in one sitting and afterwards got up and walked a little funny from being stiff. So we found another travel movie option.
Have a great weekend! Safe travels to those going visiting.
