My little helpers

For a long time now, Gemma has been helping me make my bed in the mornings.  I straighten out the sheets and comforter, then she hands me all the pillows. She now also wants to help me unload the dishwasher, vacuum, mop, dust and fold laundry.  She loves it. And I love that she loves it.  More often than not her "help" creates a little more work for me (or at least makes it take twice as long) but I don't mind. There's nothing cuter than watching her concentrate intently as she tries folding one of her shirts, then break out into a smile full of pride as she hands me a jumbled up mess.

Last week while her friend Makinley was over for the morning, they decided to take almost every single toy out of the toy closet.  Our basement was a total disaster! I was thankful that they were playing so well together and giving me a chance to do all the cleaning upstairs, but I have to admit, the idea of going downstairs and picking up all those toys was a little overwhelming.  As usual, I told them to start picking up while I prepared lunch, fully expecting to have to go down later and pick it up myself (at least most of it). They cheerfully began singing their clean up song which lasted the whole 15 minutes I was upstairs. I don't know what got into them, but those girls managed to pick up every single toy! They had every piece to Mr. Potato Head back in the appropriate box, the many MANY key rings back in their bucket which was placed  on the shelf where it belonges, and even the toy basket they had pulled out was dragged back into the closet.  I was speechless...and oh so proud!  I tested them again the next day to make sure it wasn't just a fluke. Sure enough, they had the whole basement picked up before they came up for lunch. I wish you could have seen their faces...they were so proud of themselves. Guess who is going to start picking up her own room now? :) I know the time will come when Gemma will hate doing any type of chores, and we will have countless arguments in regards to the mess in her room, so I'm going to enjoy this "clean" phase of hers to the fullest!

Helping me clean the windows :) I promise her shoes do typically match her outfit.

Makael still can't help me obviously, but he does a great job of including himself. He fully enjoys climbing on the opened dishwasher door (bad boy), or pulling out every piece of silverware... Calm down...I don't let him touch the forks or knives! His favorite thing however, is the vacuuming.  He is fascinated! He will stop whatever he's doing if he hears or sees me get the vacuum cleaner out and chase it wherever it goes.  Sometimes it can be a little annoying trying to vacuum around a moving object, but because of that, I am now a much quicker vacuumer (is that that right word?). 

Busted!

 In other news...we now have a kitten! I'll have you know, I am NOT a cat person...honestly I'm not much of a pet person in general.  I like other people's pets...I just don't like having them. However, David has mentioned a few times how fun it would be for Gemma to have a pet, so when Elly finds a 6 week old kitten in the middle of Providence road, it only makes sense for us to keep him...right? So now we have a cat...and I have to admit I really like it. It doesn't hurt that he's pretty dang cute and loves me more than anyone else.  It was hard picking out a name though.  I thought Gemma would appreciate being included in that process, but instead, she hated anything we suggested and insisted his name needed to be "kitty cat".  She finally agreed to "Samson", with the stipulation that she could still call him "kitty cat". Opinionated much are we?

Meet Samson! Sorry about the poor picture...it was the best I could do.