Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Putting them to work young

Earlier this month, Metro Mama wrote about the recently proved importance of teaching children about doing chores from a young age. If you didn't see this post the first time, you should check it out for the cute pictures. It came to mind because of my son's new favorite toy.

We were in our local drugstore, waiting for my son's prescription to be filled. He has a cough that has not gone away, despite an inhaler. The doctor prescribed a strong cough medicine for bedtime so that he (and we) might get an uninterrupted night of sleep.

As we walked the aisles, he wanted to find the toys--which they don't have. Suddenly, he pointed at an end-of-aisle display. "Want that toy!" The Swiffer CarpetFlick. My wife and I looked at each other. Then she shrugged and said, "Why not?"

So since we got home and put it together (no handle extensions and it's the perfect size for someone around 3' 2"), he has been excitedly pointing out to us, "I'm cleaning the floor." Given that he has a habit of spilling his Cheerios and other snacks, it seems about right that he can now clean up the crumbs on his own.

2 comments:

metro mama said...

This is great! I've been looking for something with a short handle for Cakes--I'll get one of these.

Thanks for the shout out.

Mouse said...

I loved the pictures from your original post.

And it is so funny now that when my son drops some Cheerios, he says, "Need to get vacuum" and then he cleans it up. Less work for us!