Two-Year-Old Chores

I've heard that it's never too early to involve kids in chores. And, with Clara, it's often more work to try to keep her from "helping" than from just letting her help in her own way.

• She loves sweeping. She's no good at it, but she LOVES it. We'll have to go to the market and get her a child-sized broom.
  

• I schedule laundry time around the times she's awake, as she loves loading the washer, closing the soap drawer, turning on the machine, unloading the washer, and bringing me clean clothes from the hamper to hang on the line. She really is pretty helpful with laundry. Particularly when we do her clothes, and I don't have to worry about her dragging shirts that are way too big for her through the dust in the laundry patio. Plus, her clothes hamper is just her size, so she can completely load and unload the washing machine on her own. It's great! Then again, she thinks she's capable of folding laundry, too. She'd be wrong on that one!
  

• My mother-in-law mentioned that her kids all learned how to make their beds when they were two or three. Since Clara's bed just got converted into a daybed, I'm in the process of showing her how to pull the sheets tight over the mattress. As it's so stinkin' hot outside, she sleeps with no sheets or blankets, so this is an excellent time to teach her this, right? She's got a long way to go before she'll ever pull those sheets even remotely tight, but she refuses to let me make her bed by myself. So I guess I'll let her learn how to make the bed. She is starting to get helpful at helping me make mine, though.

• Watering the plants has always been high on her list of priorities. Whenever she takes a bath, I now give her an empty yogurt container and ask her to water the plants with the water left in the tub (I've been bathing her in the patio--it's wonderful). She likes having something to do, and it gives me time to clean up her other bath things. Also, it's better for both of us if she's bending over to get that water out, rather than me. =P Sure, she often gets more water on the concrete than in the planters, but she's learning.

• If I make pancakes in the morning, she'll nearly throw a fit if I don't let her stir the batter. And again, she's getting pretty good at that, too.

Since she's so zealous to help, I really can't say no. And, let's face it, in a few years I'll be really grateful that I've already taken the time to teach her how to do these things.

In a few years, here's hoping that she's got a fraction of the enthusiasm for helping out around the house as she does now.