Five things, reincarnated

To reinstate an old theme, here are five things you might not know about Reilly:

1) Number one here is the most recent, in fact, this event just happened about an hour ago: Reilly took a shower by herself. By that I mean, I turned on the shower, adjusted the temperature, and handed her the soap, and she took it from there. She even shampooed her hair. When I offered to come in and help her out, she said, “No daddy! Out!”

I took that as my cue to go grab the video recorder.

In the past, Reilly didn’t much care for showers, opting instead for the tried and true bathing technique for toddlers: the bubble bath. The one time I tried to take her into the shower, she hated it, she found the spray of water overwhelming to the nth degree, and let me know my opening her mouth wide and screaming her lungs out.

It wasn’t until we took her up to North Carolina that she took a liking to showers. The issue there was that the cabin we had rented for our vacation had no bathtub; only a shower. Being that we were there for a full seven days, we figured Reilly would have to adapt to standing up while she bathed. It took a couple of tries, and a loofa with the head of a teddy bear sewed on to it, but she adjusted by the third day. That teddy bear loofa saved us from a week of smelly baby.

Thank you, teddy bear loofa.

2) Reilly can say the word ‘overcast’ with perfect pronunciation. Shawn taught it to her today.

Now she knows a synonym to ‘cloudy.’

3) Today, Shawn asked Reilly, “Who’s your mommy?”

Reilly answered: “Shawn.”

4) The other day, I left Reilly in the care of her Nana while I went to work. When I returned from work, Reilly had learned the following letters and associations:

D is for Daddy
M is for Mommy
G is for Grandma
N is for Nana
P is for Papa Bear
R is for Reilly

That’s what happens when you leave your child with an elementary school teacher for a day.

5) Reilly can read. Not really. But she will sit on the couch in her playroom, the couch that once served as pretty much the only piece of furniture in our apartment in New York, and flip the pages, chatting away. It is endearing.

In other reading news, we’re potty training Reilly. Whenever she sits on the potty, we give her a “Special Treat.” (Special Treat = M&M.) Then, we read a variety of potty books to kill time while she works up the moxie to take a leak. Her favorite potty book is, “Time to Pee,” by Mo Willems.

The beginning of the book starts, “If you ever get that funny feeling…”
The next line is, “Don’t worry!”
And then Reilly will chime in and beat me to the next line, “Don’t fret!”

The first time she did it, I thought she was reading the book. Then, realizing that she’s smart, but not that smart, I understood that she had memorized the book.

I can just hear the chorus of Nana and Grandma from the distance: BUT SHE IS THAT SMART!