Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Peculiarities of the toddlerese cleaning

I have come up with the list of pros and cons of teaching your 3 year old the basics of tidying up the room.

Pros:

1. It teaches the 3 year old how to tidy up the room. Better him than you.
2. Hopefully, since you are starting early, it will develop into a lifelong habit. Unless you have done it all wrong, pushed too hard, nagged too much and he started despising cleaning at a very early age thus developing a lifelong hatred towards this activity. But we are discussing pros.
3. Maybe he will think twice before trashing the room if he knows that he will have to clean it up. Maybe not.
4. Few things warm up this mother's heart like her son's offer to clean up the mess he didn't even make. True story! It could happen to you too!
5. He actually does a decent job doing it.
6. Even though you don't really know what happens to half the things he picks up (trash can? laundry hamper? some forsaken drawer? the space between the wall and the crib? - stay tuned, the answer might surprise you!), at least they are not in the plain view and no longer an eye sore.

There's only one con on the list, but for most it might outweigh all the pros:

1. Unbeknownst to you, the cleaning genius in training decides that the best place for all of the dirty clothes he can get his little hands on is your purse. You discover this little factoid upon trying to pay for your morning java at the coffee stand and must rummage through a pile of dirty socks and underwear that includes a pair of your own undies in order to get to the wallet, all in front of the cashier and 37 people standing in line, 7 of whom are your co-workers... Not that it ever happened to me, just saying... But it could happen to you too...

3 comments:

  1. LOL
    Or, the cleaning genius can decide to tidy up your room!
    I bought a very nice hand vac, small and powerful and light enough for Shlomik to use it. He loves it!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ha! Been there done that! We have two of those, for the past year or so, for both kids! They LOOOVE them! they ask to clean, well, sometimes.

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