Mommy's Little Helper

Harrison has finally started to embrace being a "big boy" and is eager to help with bigger tasks. This manifests in different ways, all positive and moving him ahead to becoming more self sufficient.

Recently I started making pizza at home and asked him to help me sprinkle on the cheese (instead of picking it off and eating it as I sprinkle it on myself) which led to helping add the pineapple he loves so much. Since he did such a swell job I asked him to help with mushrooms, proscuitto, sun dried tomatoes and other items that are reserved for mommy and daddy's side of the pizza. To our surprise, he sampled all these items en route to the dough... and enjoyed eating them. For the last several weeks he has helped me more and more in making dinner resulting in a kid that is pretty interested to eat everything and he proudly says "daddy, I cook, I cook it!" This break through has him suddenly eating, and loving, eggs, tacos, fajitas, meatball sandwiches... in short he will try almost anything and loves most of it. Except for veggies, these are still a challenge (not counting the pureed stuff he can suck out of pouch); he'll try 'em, chew 'em for awhile and then spit 'em out.

With warmer weather making appearances more often, we started planting flowers and herbs in late April and Harrison was eager to get help. We got him his very own spade which he used to move around dirt while mom dug holes and we examined the earthworms wriggling in their disturbed homes. Last summer he was a great helper water plants and he reprised the role again this year with renewed gusto watering everything he could reach.

Today, I had the vacuum cleaner out in the living room (it spent the last 2 days standing there, waiting for me to use it!) and he asked me for the little vacuum we use to clean the kitchen floors. We proceeded to simultaneously vacuum the kitchen and living room floors. Here is a video of his handy work on a different day:

Harrison has also taken to telling us what to do with much force and conviction. The scary part is that you know he imitates us... yikes, we must come across as stern. While eating dinner one night, he suddenly points to me and say sternly, almost yelling, "no, mommy, NO EAT!" And when daddy snickered and tried to take a bite of his food he received "Daddy, no eat, NO EAT!" While this doesn't sound helpful, it works well in other ways, such as when we are walking downstairs with Winston.Winston will walk down 5 steps and then stop, look back up at us and then wait. The problem is he is almost as big as a stair so we can't walk by him in which case I must say "Down, Winston." Not only will Harrison repeat this when I say it, he started saying it himself before I can do it.

Speaking of the stairs, Harrison also likes to place his blankies and jackets on the banister at the top of the stairs and let the item slide down to the bottom... just like his daddy showed him. I suppose that is helpful if your hands are full.