Tessa's antics (I mean helpfulness)

Tessa likes to help, I'll give her credit for that. Not so much helping with the things I would like for her to help with, like picking up toys, but she does like to help.

She likes to help me do laundry. Now, I know it sounds bad, but I often try and do laundry when she's sleeping or busy doing something else. Considering she hasn't taken a nap for the last few days, I've had to try to distract her. The reason why I distract her is because folding laundry is a never-ending process when she is "helping." She takes all the laundry that I've already folded and tries to re-fold it, then when she can't do it, she just gets frustrated and throws herself into the piles of clothes and ends up laughing and rolling around in it. So yes, folding laundry is near impossible with my helper. She does, however, make herself very useful in putting the laundry in the washing machine. I often give her the laundry basket and tell her to put a certain pile of clothes into the basket...she does that almost perfectly every time. Then we scoot the laundry basket over to the washing machine and she does really well to toss it into the machine. She can't see exactly what she's doing, but really does well. THAT is actually helpful. She also enjoys putting wet clothes into the dryer. I hand her the ones from the washer and she puts them into the dryer. I often find her in the dryer herself, but that's usually (not always) after the clothes are dry. This week, I have had a pile of clean clothes in my laundry basket that I attempted to fold numerous times, but each time was unsuccessful as Tessa has not been napping for me, and I haven't gotten much of a break. Last night, she wanted to "push the button" (on the machines) so she proceeded to fill my washing machine up with mostly clean clothes from the basket, then she started to refill up the laundry basket with dirty ones she found around the room. So now my basket is half clean, half dirty with a washing machine full of clean (dry) clothes. This is what my laundry looked like to start off today. I actually had her busy watching a movie, so I started to work on sorting. I'm trying to figure out which clothes in the basket are dirty and which are clean. Now, they've been mixed together all night, so I figured, I'd probably have to rewash them anyway. I notice as I'm going through the basket and smelling the clothes that they have a bit of a funny odor, not dirty or sweaty or like deodorant, as if they've been worn, just odd. But I kept going. Then, as I reached the bottom of the basket, I found the culprit. A wet diaper. Yep, that was the smell I was smelling. Tessa picked it up with everything else last night when she was filling the basket and tossed it in. So now it's official, I really do have to rewash everything.

She also likes to help me load and unload the dishwasher. I like to give her the silverware container and let her sort the forks, knives and spoons into their correct spot in the drawer. She actually does pretty good, and again, very helpful for me. Plus, I think it's a good skill for her to sort by shapes. This morning, I was loading the dishwasher, and here she comes, "Mommy, what you doing?" "I'm loading the dishwasher, Tessa." "Tessa do it!" So I started handing her glasses and plates and silverware, showing her where to put them. I love that she wants to help. Then, in trying to reach up on the top level, she climbs up onto the door of the dishwasher which is laying out flat. I hear a "crack!" That's where I took her off and finished the job myself. I haven't run it yet, so I'm hoping she caused no major damage. It closed okay when I was done, so hopefully, it's not broken. She also helps me wash the dishes with water. When I was upstairs this morning (folding laundry) I went down to check on her, which I do periodically when she's by herself downstairs, and I heard water running. I went into the kitchen to see that she has pulled a chair up to the sink, has the water running and my scrub brush in her hand rubbing the dishes (this was before we loaded the dishwasher). The counter was soaked, as were the cabinets up above, as were all my picture frames behind the sink, but yes, she was helping, and I am thankful for that.

My last Tessa anecdote for the morning, we were both downstairs after we had cleaned up all her toys, and I was going to sit down to work on hats. Our conversation went like this:

Tessa: Mommy, upstairs.
Me: You want me to go upstairs?
Tessa: Yes, upstairs.
Me: Why? Are you going to do something you don't want me to see?
Tessa: Yes.

I love the brutal honesty my daughter gives me. She's the best.