Mommy's Big Helper

Joshua has started to want to do everything that we do. This means we can start to channel his enthusiasm into productive things. It takes a little longer with his help, but it also means I can do more things with him up and without him whining.

His first helping thing is to help unload the dishwasher. I have to get to the dishwasher first to get all the sharp knives out, but then he hands me each piece of silverware individually. He calls them all spoons, I tell him if they are a fork or a knife and he says yep. Sometimes he will grab a spoon and a bowl and start stirring and pretending to eat, (when he gets bored with those dishes they go back in the sink), but pretty much he will just hand us everything to put up. We have to hurry to keep up with him.

Joshua will also help me do laundry. He gets a kick out of throwing the clothes in the washer and dryer. The hard part is, when the whole load is in, he will run over and try to grab the clean clothes still in the laundry room and throw them in the washer or dryer.

Finally he has started helping me take out the trash. Our trash people do recycling, so we will have a bag of plastics with our trash. That bag is usually pretty light and has the tye strings at the top. I will walk out with the trash to take it to the curb and Joshua will drag out the plastics. The hard part was trying to get him to put the bag down. He kept running around trying to look in other people's trash, and then had a fit when I made him but the bag down.

It is tons of fun to see how much he is learning all of the sudden and hopefully the wanting to help mommy with everything continues for a good long while.