Washing Dishes

The other day, I was conversing with a co-worker of mine that has a boy only a few months older than Little One. She told me how her son loves to help her wash the dishes. She allows him to play in the soap bubbles and "wash" out the dishes in the sink. I remember thinking, "hmmm...I wonder how I could tactfully do that with Little One..." My thought was realized today.

I was emptying the dishwasher and rinsing dishes to load it for the next wash. Little One was wandering around, chasing the cats and doing various things to occupy himself. At some point, he had gone up the stairs and came back down with his step-stool in hand. I watched him as he set the stool down by my feet, climbed up on it, and attempted to peek over the counter to see what I was doing.

I knew he wanted to help me wash dishes, more than that he wanted to play in the water. Since the counter was at nose level for him, even on the stool, I picked him up and set him on the counter so he could watch me.

The first thing he did was to put his feet in the sink and let his feet play in the water. Then, he discovered the spray. I am not kidding when I say for at least a half-hour, Little One was completely captivated by simply holding the sprayer and watching the water flow from it, hit the sink bottom and go down the drain. He didn't move, not a flinch. He just sat there and watched the water and held the sprayer. I couldn't get over it.

I finally was able to distract him when I pulled out a bowl of chocolate pudding. We remained there by the sink and ate our pudding. When the bowl was empty, I set it in the sink, filled it with soapy water and gave Little One a scrub brush. He then proceeded to "wash" the bowl. When the chocolate was gone, he picked it up (full to the brim with soapy water) and attempted to hand it to me. Good thing I was there, or there would have been a major puddle of water on the floor!

Thus our adventures in washing dishes today.