A 2 Year Old and a Bottle of Water

So Jeffrey drinks water like a fish. I have purchased several big plastic bottles for him to use so that we can save a little money on his "drinking habit". If I had to buy water to keep him hydrated we would be poor. Plus, these bottles have straws vs. the regular bottles that you just unscrew the lid and drink from. This really helps us bypass a ton of messes.

Today he came up to me and asked for me to fill his bottle. I told him that I was changing Bubba's diaper and so he needed to ask daddy for help. I assumed (something I should never do) that he went and asked David for help in filling his bottle. I continued changing Bubba and getting him dressed so that we could go to church. At that point I honestly forgot about Jeffrey's request, thinking that it had been fulfilled as I didn't hear anything else about it. I put Bubba in the car, packed up the diaper bags, and then heard Jeffrey on his way out to the car. I noticed that he had an actual bottle (no straw) and it was filled all the way to the top with water. David followed out the door and I asked him why he had given Jeffrey such a full bottle of water before church. I knew that by the time we drove the 7 min it takes us to get to worship that he would be soaked, his chair would be saturated and the back seat would have puddles in it. I quickly took the bottle from him and poured the water into one of his "mommy approved" bottles and then handed it back to him. David looked at me and said, "you didn't fill that bottle for him?" I replied, "no, did you not fill it up?" He said, "no". I looked at Jeffrey and asked him, "hey sweetie, where did you get your water?" His reply, "Shoe (his name for himeself) got water from bathtub." Bless his little heart. We have a survivor on our hands. I guess David was busy when I told Jeffrey to ask daddy for help and so instead of bothering him he just took the matter into his own hands and filled his bottle by himself.

I look at this situation and realize that I have learned something new about our little man. He is not only resourceful but very observant of other people's activities. He recognized that mommy and daddy were busy at that very second and knew that he was very thirsty so instead of making a scene the little dude figured out a way to survive. Wouldn't it be great if adults were as resourceful? We tend to be so lazy, we want everything handed to us the second we realize we want it. We have conditioned ourselves to think that we "deserve" things just because we think we need them. It amazes me that a 2 year old realized something that most adults will never realize. I love the lessons we learn from our kids.