So this amazing thing happened recently; Lily started helping me! It started with, ‘Lily, bring me your block’ so that I could put her blocks away. I would point to the block I wanted her to bring me, she would walk over, pick it up, walk back and hand it to me. She followed this simple type of instruction for a couple of weeks when it occurred to me that she could help with other tasks. ‘Lily, do you want to help Momma with the laundry?’ She nods her head yes and walks to the mud room. She helps put the clothes in the washer, she helps move the clothes from the washer to the dryer, she helps put the clothes from the dryer into the basket. She also likes to push the buttons, but that task is a little trickier, there are so many buttons and she never wants to push the one I ask her to push. The other day, I said, ‘Do you want to help Momma put wood on the fire? And by help, I mean stand nearby and watch while Momma puts wood on the fire.’ She once again nodded her head yes. I brought her out to the living room and put her down on the floor near the wood pile, I grabbed a log and went to the wood stove to add it to the fire. When I looked over to see what she was doing, she had walked over to the wood pile and was trying to pull a good size log down off the pile. I quickly stopped her, I didn’t want her to pull it off the shelf and hurt herself, but I did give her a smaller log and asked her to bring it over to the wood stove for me so I could put it on the fire. She very proudly carried the small log from the wood pile to the wood stove, handed it to me and watched as I put it on the fire. This was not a task I really thought she could help me with, and yet, she did. A couple of days ago, she was playing in her room while I folded her clothes and put them away. This always takes longer than she can handle, but she does her best while I finish up the task. This day, I decided that I didn’t want to leave her room in the state we tend to leave it in after putting her clothes away. I got down on the floor and said, ‘Can I help you put your toys away?’ She nodded her head yes. First we gathered up her blocks, she put them in their bag one by one, when they were all away I zipped up the bag and put it away – she was not sure about me putting it away. I quickly called her to another task, her shape sorted and all the shapes had to be put away. We found all the shapes and I helped her find the corresponding holes for each shape. Once it was full I gave it to her and asked her to put it on the shelf, she knew exactly where it went and took it over. I asked her to put her books away and she put them on the book shelf, I asked her to put her sleep toys away and she put them in the basket, I asked her to put her blocks away and she put them in the appropriate basket or shelf. She knew exactly where all her toys were meant to go and as long as I kept pointing out toys that were out of place she was quite happy to tidy them up. I love that she has turned into a little helper, she loves to help me with any task (even if the only way she can help is by watching). Things take a lot more time to get them done now, but it’s much more fun with a little helper and we really have no deadlines for any of these things, yet.