Going Solo

Aden's latest thing when he goes to the bathroom is that he wants to go all by himself with no help from mommy or daddy. He is finally tall enough to turn on the light by himself. He can get his shorts and big boy pants off by himself (he still likes to take them completely off). And he can 'do his business' by himself. Shortly after all of this, we will hear the toilet flushing. Washing hands seems to be next before getting dressed. There is a stool at the sink, but it isn't tall enough so that he can reach to turn on the water by himself. However, he has discovered that he can pull himself up onto the counter with his elbows and then turn on the water. I have walked in a few times to see him hanging from the cabinet, naked from the waist down. The other day was different though. I could hear the water running for much longer than it should have been. Since we haven't had much rain lately, and the rainwater is our source of life, I went to check it out before he emptied our tank. As I walked into the bathroom, I found Aden standing on top of the counter in a squat position, and yes still naked from the waist down, leaning over the sink. I asked him what he was doing up there, to which he calmly explained that he had an 'oww-ee' on his big toe that needed to be washed. While I was impressed that he was able to scale the vanity so easily at three years of age, a discussion was still necessary (and hard to do with a straight face) about how standing on top of the bathroom counter with no clothes on is generally not appropriate. (For obvious reasons, there are no pictures included with this post.)