Last evening, I put Eliyahu to bed early, and got to have a fun time with just Yehoshua, teaching him more about helping in the kitchen!

I am often guilty of falling into the trap of "just wanting to do things myself", especially now that I have two little helpers. It can be quite challenging at times to manage two little boys, both helping with the dishes... trying to keep them from fighting, or falling off the chair, or breaking a dish, or dumping water everywhere... ;)

I know you ladies with many children are probably laughing at the idea of being challenged by just two little kitchen helpers! ;) I do think it's sometimes easier to focus on training just one at a time, though.

And since Yehoshua's the oldest child, there are moments when I realize that he's been capable of much more than I've been requiring!

I remember when Yehoshua was 10 months old and Joshua told me it was time to make him pick up his own toys. After putting aside my skeptical attitude ("Great! Now it'll take me twice as long!"), I watched in amazement as I saw my 10-month-old BABY putting his own toys away when prompted!

Well, last night was one of those times. Recently, Yehoshua (3) has been helping to set the table for meals, putting away some clean dishes, and can also bring the dirty dishes over to the sink. But last night, I had him do much more, and he loved it! He put away most of the leftovers (I gave him a container and lid for each item, and he filled it and put it in the fridge), dumped the garbage outside on our compost pile (by himself!), and cleared the table of all the dirty dishes!

He had a lot of fun being "my special helper", and I'm looking forward to involving him in more of these new tasks. :)