Manly Boy

First off, let me make it known that this is the 100th post on the Freeman Family Blog! And now, for the rest of the story...

I am continually encouraging my children to help with things around the house (yes, except with dinner. I just cannot muster the patience to let them help around the oven at dinner, but they do bake with me. Do I get points for that?). Thomas is pretty good at making his bed, putting their books away, cleaning at his room, helping switch laundry over and carrying/pushing/pulling empty or very full baskets of laundry from place to place. He also has learned to stack his dishes, help put away laundry, and several miscellaneous things that he just does on his own.

Sarah Grace (who chooses to sleep in the floor most of the time these days) is capable of making her bed (which means piling it all back on the bed to help Mommy with when she makes it 'for real'), tossing her toys into her toy box, stacking her dishes, helping with the laundry, and picking up random stuff from the floor and putting it away. She is also our resident blood hound. If something is missing, you can pretty well count on Sarah Grace to know where it is, or look until it is found. Most of the time.

Another one of Thomas's responsibilities is helping to gather the trash and take it out to the outside can, then on garbage nights, help wheel the can to the road and return it later that day. He is very grown up about all of this. Today, he added to his list of accomplishments, the title of Trash Can Liner Putter Inner. Joshua was making the rounds, gathering the trash to take out, and Thomas was right on his heels, helping. Thomas wanted to return the kitchen trash can to its home under the sink, but it did not have a liner in it. I grabbed a liner out of the cabinet, showed him how to pull the top open and then shake it until it ballooned out, then he expertly put it in the pail on his own. Below is his description of his feat, in his own words.

"I oped it and shaked it and putted it in the twash can. All around, then pushed it and it putted there and under da sink and close da door."

As he was telling all of this, he relived the event with all the actions that his little body actually took to get the liner into the can. My little man!