Evolution of the Morning Routine

Being a part time single working parent, I have cultivated and encouraged H playing in the bathroom so I could get a shower and get ready in the morning in some timely fashion. For four years, I had to get up and get H fed first thing before I could even think about my morning readiness routine. 

Early days we had a quite large bathroom with a clear glass shower door. I could entertain him if he was not in the shower with me. As he began playing with things, we had blocks and balls to bat around and stack. Our move resulted in a much smaller bathroom with a typical fabric curtain. The toys got larger and more numerous until there was hardly space to walk with buckets and boxes and blankets and stuffed friends. Then, they began to flow into the walk through where the extra sink and closet door were located. A little cubby made a great garage or what not to park vehicles of all kinds. The porta potty, no longer needed for original use, became another garage or launching pad, or parking area. The trucks started to become more sophisticated and the smaller cars became more and more numerous with assorted items representing whatever the imagination thought of for the day. 

The porta potty began to double as a stool to reach the sink. He began to take up more room in the shower when he opted to join me. The toothbrushes began to multiply almost daily. Finally, one day, four and a half years later, I became able to get back to MY routine of getting up and taking a shower first (after cuddle time of course when mornings were spent being some animal of the moment or listening to some truly awesome story or moment in time.) and then getting breakfast. Some days he wants to get breakfast on his own. I will come down and he will be through with his preparations for the day. Now, the toys are becoming less and less. They are less in number and less in imagination as to what is being represented. For a while, there were cars some days, or ships, or fire trucks, or car haulers, helicopters, airplanes. Other days we had an assortment of dinosaurs big and small. But, more often these days I find little blocks and all the assorted tiny things that go with the blocks on my counter in one small area on my counter. No big piles of jumble or buckets of things. Nothing for Daddy to grumble about on the weekends because so much is underfoot. No, just neat little blocks often self contained within the object du jour. The little blocks are wonderfully imaginative things - fire stations, restaurants, houses, bridges, jails, docks, buildings of every shape and size all in miniature. The amount of space needed is much less. The step on little pieces factor has grown exponentially but I have to admit....I kind of miss those "hardly room to walk around" days when my little guy would happily babble away about whatever was occurring in his head at the time - nonsensical as it may have seemed. 

We have conversations still but not so many silly songs. Discussions of things about the day to come or the day before. I love seeing and hearing and experiencing the changes in him. But...still....I know the day will come when he will not bother to bring his toys into the room or even want to be with me in the morning sitting on a stool concocting his latest architectural design in miniature complete with parking spaces and moving doors asking me about my every move and saying "Mom, look....what do you think of this?" So, I relish and rue the return to "my" world.