My Little Helper

I was reading the Making Home Work blog today, a post about letting your children help out around the house.  This is something I do, but probably not enough.

Anyway, the cute pictures and stories about Jenny and her little boy made me think of an adorable thing my daughter does...of course.

Does everyone have a Swiffer? I have two.  One is the plain jane variety. The newer one is the SwifferVac--you know the one with the vaccuum motor and filter and dust bin.  I love the thing.  It's not true that I'll never go back to my old broom and dust pan.  I often do for deep cleaning...but I digress.

When I bought the vaccuum Swiffer, I took a couple of sections out of the handle of the old one. Now it's just the right size for my 4 year old to use.  She loves it.  Any time I get out my vaccuum Swiffer, she comes right along and grabs hers to help. 

She even made up a little song (Think "This is the way we wash our face...").

Me and my mom are swiffering,
Swiffering, swiffering
Me and my mom are swiffering
All day long.

It doesn't really take all day. I'm not that slow.

Even so, I promise, that song is one of the cutest things you'll ever hear.

Reading that blog today, I was reminded how much I take my blessings for granted. My daughter is the greatest thing God ever put in my life...except maybe her daddy...and I sometimes forget that. 

What's more, she thinks doing housework fun. Crazy right? Not really.

They say children spell love T-I-M-E.

Not T-V.

Not  D-V-D.

Not even P-S-3.

TIME. Game time. Story time. Dinner time. Chore time. As long as they get YOUR time, they don't care what you do with it.

Love doesn't get easier than that.

On a completely unrelated note, my husband and I are celebrating our 10th Anniversary today.
Melissa, did you remember?

She’s Four…Going on Sixteen

As I was tucking my daughter into bed last night, she said the cutest thing…

“Mommy, you’re the sweetest thing in the world…”

Her 4-year-old speech made it sound like, “Mommy, yore da sweetes’ sing in da worwd…”

She says this occasionally, and it never fails to warm my heart. However, this time it was followed by this:

“…but sometimes you can get bossy.”

Just like that, she’s a teenager!

A few minutes later, to my relief, she was back to being my sweet little girl. Climbing back into bed after a trip to the potty, she said, “Pwease, Mommy, I want you to way wiss me!* Pwease!” 

It was all I could do not to curl up beside her and rock her to sleep.

As the song says, “Thank Heaven for little girls…”

Unfortunately, it’s also true that “…little girls get bigger every day.”

* In case it's been a while since you lived with a 4-year-old, that's "lay with me!"

So, So Sorry!!

I did an okay job "Finishing" for the first part of the week.  In fact, Monday and Tuesday, I was almost unstoppable. Taking down Christmas trees, Cleaning out (horrifying) refrigerators... (as I type this I'm thinking, "Was that really this week?" It seems like ages ago.)

Wednesday I finished the book for my book review, but I didn't get the review written.  I still don't have it written.  Wednesday evening my little girl was sick, and we ended up in Urgent Care before 7:00pm.  She was okay. It was kind of a "just in case" trip.  But I've been playing catch up ever since. 

As for Flash Fiction Friday?  Well, we just didn't do it today.

I had a brainstorm, I'll write the review, and post it next Wednesday.  My book reviews will be a week behind, but I'll have plenty of time to write them without stressing about it.  And anyhow, who would notice?  Only me.

Hopefully you all aren't dealing with sick kids at home too.  It's just no fun. : (

Mommy, how do ears make earwax?

OK.  It's harder than I thought to find/make time for my blog.  I get so wrapped up in the ones I want to read, then my housework suffers, and my daughter wonders why Mommy won't play with her.  I'm still working out the schedule, but I AM going to do this.  A brilliant writer whose name I can't remember right now once said that writing is like water, nothing comes out if you don't turn on the faucet. So I'm turning on the faucet, and hopefully said brilliant writer isn't turning in his grave that I can't remember his name (I do remember he is a "he" and he's dead.  That should narrow it down right?)

None of that had anything to do with earwax. Right? I know; I'm getting to that.  Right now. 

My little girl asked me on Saturday, "How do ears make earwax?" I told her I didn't know, but we could look it up on the Internet. (I get so excited to say that because we've been without the Internet for most of her short life).  We both forgot the conversation until, conveniently, just before bedtime.  She looked at me and said in her drama-princess* voice, "Mommy, we forgot to find out about earwax on the Internet!"  I let her get by with this stalling tactic for a few reasons: I had told her we could look it up, I would like to introduce her to the computer as soon as I can, so she won't be behind all the other kids later, and she was just so dog-gone cute about the whole thing.

We found the website about earwax (KidsHealth  something, I'd make a link, but I still don't have that down quite yet), and I helped her work the mouse.  She was clicking and scrolling like a pro before I finally made her go to bed.

Oh the excitment of being a mommy.  Gotta love it!

*Mommy is the only "drama queen" in our house, thank you!

Three-year-olds in church

It might surprise you how much kids actually catch in church.

My husband is pastor of our church, and he has a habit of asking the congregation, "Did God tell you to do that? Or did the devil tell you to do that?"   His point being that if we examine our actions and inclinations, it usually isn't all that hard to tell.  Well, last Sunday he listed off a few of these rhetorical questions, ending with "Did God tell you to punch that fella' in the nose? Or did the devil?"

My three-year-old, who was sitting next to me instead of grandma for a change, looked up at me and said, "I think the devil."  I was so surprised and tickled, all I could say was, "I think you're right." 

Then and there I praised God that she was paying attention in church enough to understand the question, and that she pays enough attention on a daily basis to understand the right answer.