Fine Motor Mess

Yesterday I was putting away laundry upstairs, and Teddy was upstairs with me. I know there's a few more things he can get into upstairs, such as eating books if he gets hungry while reading them or opening cupboards to find interesting things. I heard him playing in AJ's room, and then he went into the bathroom and shut the door. (He doesn't shut the door for privacy. It's just that he likes playing with doors.)

As I opened the door to check on him a few minutes later, I was really hoping he wasn't splashing in the toilet. Thankfully, he wasn't. Instead, he was working on his fine motor skills, and I really applaud his initiative to do therapy exercises all by himself.

He unscrewed the lid from the red bath soap (that resembles finger paint) all by himself. Then he squeezed soap out of the tube with enough force to splatter it several feet away on the wall. He also applied a good amount to the counter and was using his hand, and isolating his thumb, to swipe through the paint.

Check out that thumb swiping!

What a tremendous amount of fine motor skills he used! I was equally impressed that although he had plenty of soap on his face, he didn't appear to have intentionally eaten any of it.

He was mighty pleased with himself, rightfully so.

With a few minutes of wiping up with a bath towel, all the red soap was removed from the bathroom. I didn't wash Teddy off because we were 10 minutes from leaving for his annual checkup, so I just wiped the visible soap on him. He played in his swimming pool yesterday afternoon. Soap in the morning plus water in the afternoon ... sounds like we can count that as a bath.