My little bitty baby boy will be three years old in just over a month. He now has his first official household chore. There's something about this milestone that is leaving me in complete awe. He is really growing up... wow.
He's been helping me feed the dogs for as long as I can remember. Our dogs are fed twice a day. They eat separate food because we feed the younger one a prescription food from the vet and we feed the older one a nice mature dog food blend. I always fill a cup with food for the older dog first and my little Abe puts the food in his dish. I then fill a cup for the younger dog and little Abe puts the food into her dish. He returns the cup to one of the dog food bags for me and then he closes the door. Last night I asked him if he wanted to feed the dogs all on his own and he was very excited at the idea. He opened the door, scooped the perfect amount of food for our boy and placed it into his dish, scooped the perfect amount of food for our girl, placed it in her dish, returned the cup to the bag, and closed the door. I sat across the room and watched my very big boy taking care of his pups all on his own.
Today he's fed the dogs each time all on his own. I have just pulled a ball jar from the basement and marked it with a dry erase marker so that my little guy has his first chore jar. And now I have a decent use for the odd little wall cubby (that used to house the wall phone). I'll put a cotton ball in the jar each time he completes his chore (I'll include helping me to clean up his toys at the end of the day) and when the cotton balls reach the line he'll get a reward. For now I'm thinking I'll have him pick out a toy from the dollar store. I've only filled the jar for photographic purposes. He's got two cotton balls so far. It should only take a week for him to reach the line right now but I'll use something smaller than cotton balls and move the line up more once he has more than one chore.
My baby is growing up!
When he gets a little older I'll institute an allowance and I'll probably end up switching the big helper jar from "chores" to "kind unexpected acts."
Average daily spending for 2015: $16.09
That is so sweet - it is amazing how much they want to help when they are young!!! I hate to be the party pooper but it will end the older they get - I now just close the door to my 20 year old's room - otherwise I might lose my mind :) Between college, work, and friends, our 4 cats would starve if I left their mealtimes to him :) Enjoy EVERY MINUTE of this time!!!
ReplyDeleteSue :)
I'll stay disillusion for a little while :D Right now he is momma's shadow so he "helps" me with EVERYTHING. I know that he's not always going to want to help or be my shadow... he's already not a big fan of picking up his toys but I'd like to think that giving him responsibilities, a little at a time, and showing him that they are good will establish some sort of good foundation. (I remember seeing my husband's room when he 20 years old too (we married when I was 22 and he was 21), I know what you're talking about !)
DeleteI love that little cubby hole you have! And the cotton wool balls sound a lovely idea.
ReplyDeleteThanks :) I had to remove the envelope of film negatives from it to put the cotton ball jar in, haha. There are interesting things like that cubby about our house, even though often very small and insignificant that I like the most about it. Our little "phone" cubby certainly gives the dining room character :)
DeleteOh, I don't remember if I commented last time, I got the tiny panting towards the top when we were at Bunratty castle in Ireland and I got the tiny panting towards the bottom at a street market in Guatemala. Those are actually two of my favorite things in my home. I probably wrote that last time I posted a photo of our cubby though...
DeleteThey grow up so fast, don't they?! What a great helper your little man is- pat on the back to mommy for getting him started early on with chores. :) I love the cotton ball jar idea! When I reward my kids their favorite thing is to be taken to the dollar store to pick something out- imagine walking into a store as a kid and being told you can pick any one thing you want in the whole store- haha! :)
ReplyDeleteSo fast! and thank-you :)
DeleteYou can't do that with any other store, huh. It is really cool, "okay honey, you can have ANY one thing you want!" Out of an entire store. Now that is awesome!
I don't have any, but I LOVE little cubbies like that - they give a house so much character!!! What year was your house built? Ours was built in the 60's so we don't have any fun stuff like that!!!
ReplyDeleteSue :)
Oh, it had to have been at least early 40's... I'm taking a guess. My husband's grandparents built the house. It's funny though, they picked it out of a catalog... we have the catalog! It was before my mother in law and her older sister were born so it would have been around the early 40's. We also have a picture of them digging out the basement with horses. His grandparents did a great job with the house though. The walls are super sturdy, there are arches between rooms, the wood trim and doors are the most beautiful color I've ever seen... kind of a deep burnt honey. I do really like our house and all its little bits of character. We've really never done anything to it so it's very original. Oh, we did take the kind of pinky orange shag carpet out of the living room though :) haha, that had to have been from the 60's
DeleteOh, it sounds fantastic and how wonderful for your little guy to grow up in the same house his great-grandparents did!!!
ReplyDeleteI can relate to the shag carpeting - I remember our house when I was growing up had wallpaper in the bathroom that was HUGE brown & orange flowers - yikes!!!
Sue :)
It is pretty neat. There is nothing but family history in our home. That in itself is pretty cool. We'll kind of be bad guys though if we ever sell it... although we have no plans to move.
DeleteGreat visualizing progress idea!
ReplyDeleteUh, can you even believe this!?!?! He's excited every time we put a cotton ball in the jar so it's doing it's job right now :)
DeleteMy daughter had her first "job" when she had just turned two. Her job was to put all the utensils from the dishwasher into the drawer. When I told the teacher who would eventually be her first grade teacher and was the first grade of my older daughter, the teacher said that sorting was a reading readiness skill. My youngest child was the best little worker.
ReplyDeleteThe cotton ball in the Ball is a cute idea.
I really like that idea. Little Abe could do that too after I sort out the knives. Thanks for the suggestion :D
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