Flashback: A Monday To Remember

After reading back through yesterday’s post, I realized I totally forgot to include a very big achievement of The Princess’s this week – oops, I guess that’s what I get for neglecting the old blog for a week straight, eh?

Humor me. It’ll be worth it.

On Monday we made our regular trip to the clinic for OT, and The Princess headed straight for her happy place as usual. If you’re new here, the “happy place” is the ball pit in the gym. Since day one at this clinic, The Princess has been unbelievably attached to this ball pit. It seems to provide just the right proprioceptive input for her little body, and very often it’s a fight to get her out.

The previous Monday’s session involved a lot of coaxing her out of the happy place and up the stairs to go down the slide…landing right back in the happy place for more good old fashioned sensory input.

This Monday, however, was a bit different. I was nothing short of shocked when I asked my little girl if she wanted to get out and go down the slide, and she listened, getting out of the pit by herself and heading straight up the stairs to the slide. No further prompt from me, no having to ask twice. She remembered it from last week and went up those stairs all by herself. She plopped onto her butt when she got up to the platform, and scooted to the top of the slide. She grinned from ear to ear as Sakina and I chorused, “Ready…set…”, and squealed in absolute delight as we yelled, “Go!!!” and let go…allowing her to plummet down the slide unassisted and land smack-dab in the middle of her happy place.

Unlike last week, there was no fight to get her out of the ball pit for the subsequent trips down the slide. She did, however, figure out a different way to get what she wanted. After the “Go!!!” plummet, she’d careen into the ball pit and giggle with delight. Within seconds after that first trip down the slide, my little girl got up, marched to the bottom of the slide, gave it an appraising look, and mounted the slide at the bottom, grasping the sides, and proceeded to climb back up to the top.

This was no easy feat the first time, considering she was in stocking feet. But The Princess would not be deterred. She marched her way up that slide like a champ, and you should have seen the look of pride on her little face when she realized she’d made it to the top without ever having to touch the floor in between.

For a moment, she sat at the top and beamed. We all rejoiced in her accomplishment, and she scootched herself back into launching position…waiting for the “Go!!!” When the moment of freedom arrived, she squealed in pure delight the whole way down, sending balls flying left and right as she splashed into the pit at the bottom of the slide.

Where she sat for a moment, seemingly thinking. No, not thinking. Taking her sock off. Seriously.

Once she had rid herself of both of the progress-impeding garments, The Princess mounted the bottom of the slide and made it to the top in half the time it had taken her previously. Hard work, followed by pure glee the likes of which only a toddler can understand, then the reward of sliding back down…only to start the whole cycle over again.

We must have watched her climb up that slide more than twenty times, I kid you not. And I could have stayed there all day long. As long as I may live, I will never forget the pride and accomplishment stamped all over her angelic little face.