And you know what such a kid will say?
Yah! What is it?! What can I do?!
From there, you can get said kid to: wipe the dining room table, clean the bathroom sinks, wipe/dust the stairs, make her bed, and - get this - continue to keep on asking for more things to do!
Yeah. I know. So cool, huh?
See, Hubby and I have - rather unpremeditatedly - begun to intersperse new little duties to Sweetie, telling her that, once she's 6 years old, she'll have to know how to do these things. Things such as wash herself in the tub (rather than having me do it), brush her teeth (again - currently my job), and generally help out a bit more around the house.
So when I got on a cleaning binge the other day and set Sweetie to the task of cleaning off her "craft table" (the coffee table in our living room), well - she did it without much of a fight, but still not terribly enthusiastically, as I'm sure you can imagine.
At the time, I was washing dishes in the kitchen. I suppose I was thinking about all the other rooms I had to get to to make the house really tidied up as much as I wanted. So when Sweetie finished her table chore, in that very second it occurred to me to ask her for more help - by spicing the job up with a taste of importance and "big kid" skill.
Honestly - all I was looking for at the time was a little more help with the dining room table. But when Sweetie was so stinkin' excited to be doing the work of a 6 year old (!), she just kept asking and asking for more jobs. I even once caught her talking to herself while she cleaned, muttering proudly under her breath, I'm practicing for when I'm 6 years old.
That was two days ago. Then yesterday morning she asked if she could please brush her teeth all by herself - because that was a 6 year old job that she needed to practice.
Then, while watching me clean a few more dishes in the sink, she asked me if washing dishes will be a job she can do when she's 6 years old.
Uh... No. You're not tall enough for that one. In a few more years, though - yes. You can do that too.
Sweetie proudly reported to Daddy all the 6 year old jobs she practiced that day. And she told a friend in her class as well as Nana and Papa.
She's very, very proud of herself.
Hubby and I are thinking she's going to be really helpful in getting the house ready for Christmas in the coming weeks, and generally more agreeable to helping clean up on a weekly - or even daily! - basis.
Heck! Ever since, she's been keeping an awfully close eye on that dining room table, wanting to wipe it down whenever she sees even the slightest smudge on it.
Imagine me, having to tell her, No, Sweetie. It's okay. It doesn't have to be cleaned off so much.
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