Becoming My Mother

When my sister and I were really little, my Mom had the brilliant idea to put us to good use when we were, as she says, "squirrely."  She put masking tape, sticky-side out, around our hands and knees, and let us crawl around the floor, seeing how much debris we could collect on the tape.  At the tender ages of 5 and 7, we thought this was a game, a really great game.  We were actually encouraged to crawl around on the floor!  Our Mom was the coolest.  And in return, our Mom got a really clean floor.

Mom, you're a genius.

Today we took down the Christmas tree.  Yes, I know that it is January 23rd, thank you very much.  The tree has been good to us but it has long-since died.  Hence the disasterous trail of pine branches and needles paving the way from the far living room wall to the front door after Michael wrestled in outside.  It looked like our house was built around a thicket. 

My first incling was to try to clean this all up before Oliver was finished with his lunch, so that he wouldn't be playing with the forest floor.  But as we all do at some point or another, I began to think like my Mom. 

"Oliver!" I said, taking him out of his high chair.  "Can you pick up the branches and put it in this garbage bag?" I asked with a tone of toddler-y excitement, handing him a Target bag.  I demonstrated with one branch.  A huge smile crept across his face, and he was off.  I think the child picked up three times as many branches as I did.

As the trail began to clear, I'd find another and say, "here Oliver, here's another branch.  Can you put it in the bag for Mommy?"  He'd run over, take the branch, and for the first time in his life, he said:  "Taint too!" ("thank you").  Right.  Not only does our toddler enjoy cleaning up messes, but he thanks us for the privelege.    What more could we ask for?




(Ahem).

Tomorrow's toddler fun:  scooping the litter box.  Get to work, son!