The past couple of weeks I have fallen a little behind on the housework, and it has been driving me crazy. You see, I got pretty busy making hats and thinking about Harry Potter scarves, and on top of that Joseph has had a pretty bad cold. He is starting to feel a bit better now, so today I decided to take the bull by the horns again and tackle the housework once again. It is always difficult to do much of consequence with a toddler underfoot, unless one devises creative ways to get the toddler to cooperate, or keep himself busy. Luckily, Joseph is doing rather well in both regards. When I was mopping the floors this morning I put Joseph in the playpen and gave him this really cool shape sorter that has keys (that is the thing in the picture), some puzzles, and two see-n-say toys that I reserve for the playpen only.
Last week my friend Lisa was telling me about the Montessori Method of childcare, in which the child is encouraged to help with everyday tasks. I have gotten Joseph to help me clean up his toys, and 'help' sweep and dust for quite a while, but doing dishes has always been a problem. We dry our dishes in the dishwasher, and Joseph has figured out how to open it and also turn it on. This is quite a nuisance when I am trying to load clean dishes. A couple of days ago I decided to get him to help me with the dishes by giving him the plastic dishes and the wooden spoons to load into the dishwasher himself. He was very excited about helping. This morning I told him it was time to do the dishes, and he came running. When we were finished, he proudly declared "Jojo help!"
1 comment:
It's so funny that Joseph knows how to turn on the dishwasher, but it's great that he's learning to help. Keep it up, it pays off later. We're starting to see the results of all our "training", the kids pretty much pick up their toys and they always put their shoes and coats away when they come home from school. You've just got to have lots of patience.
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