Tuesday, May 31, 2011

A Helping Hand

I am all about getting my kids to help clean the house.  They love being involved and I love the idea that they are learning skills that will help our home operate smoothly over the years to come.

Last week my son decided to take on a cleaning mission, solo.  It was technically nap time, so his mission was supposed to be sleeping in his big boy bed.  Sadly he wasn't so interested in the whole nap time scene.  He was apparently more into the cleaning the bathroom scene.

I heard his little feet pitter patter over my head and realized he was in the wrong section of the house.  Whenever I hear the kids in our room I tend to intervene quickly.  I ran up the steps to find the little guy standing in the hallway saying, "water, water." 

He led me down the hall to our bathroom where I found that he had been cleaning the walls and floors with the toilet brush, using the toilet bowl water as his "cleaning" fluid.  I was pretty zonked out that day and had been hoping to get a few basic things done during "nap time."  Cleaning toilet water off the walls and floors of the master bathroom had not been on my agenda.

While trying to hold it together, I walked him to the sink, washed his hands, and then walked him to his room, where I changed his clothes.  I deposited him in bed, again, and called my husband to whine.  After I pulled it together and got over my pity party, I cleaned up the toilet water and disinfected everything.

I probably should have gotten him involved in the clean up but was not in a head space where I could turn the situation into a "teachable" moment. 

He never did take his nap, but I did learn to close our bathroom door at nap time.

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