My Little Helpers

With toddlers you have to start with helping out early. I make sure that it is a game with a prize at the end for the ones that help. Usually the play room is cleaned up at night by the "safari." Of course it would take Noel and I half the time to pick up the toys then the "safari" but then they would not learn the lesson of cleaning up after themselves.

The first picture is what the shoes are suppose to look like. The second is what they look like with "help." I am glad that they got all the shoes in the shoe organizer but it looks like we are going to play Jenga. The "safari" was so proud that they got all the shoes put up and that the play room was clean.

At night whomever helps pick up toys instead of taking the toys out of the bucket or trying to climb in the bucket gets a cookie. Hannah gets a cookie if she helps push the bucket with mommy. If you do not help then you get to watch the others eat their cookie. I think that we will start to get them involved in other activities in the house. Pretty soon I will have some wonderful cleaning "maids." The positive thing for the "safari" is that no matter what the outcome is the help is what is rewarded not the look of the outcome.

***UPDATE on Autumn: It looks like she is going to be able to come on Friday. They took her off the oxygen, there are no more florescent lights, and the feeding tube is gone. I want to thank everyone that prayed for Autumn. Please continue to pray that there will be no medical problems from this incident.