Mommy's little helper

Seeger has been a bit whiny lately. It's not his personality - usually he's a jokester who likes to make us laugh. But lately, not so much. I'm not sure if he needs more attention from Mike and I or if he's tired of everyone being home all the time this summer. I think it's a combo of both and with Mike and Nicklas back in school, he has the house to himself again. Hopefully this will help. I'm also trying to give him more attention but I definitely don't get to sit and play with him as much as I'd like to. As a compromise, I've been trying to involve him in helping me with the daily chores as much as possible. He loves to "help" carry the laundry basket, push the buttons on the washing machine, "wash" the windows, "sweep" the floors, etc. This week, I've also gotten him involved with dinner prep. Yesterday he set the table. Tonight, he helped cook.


First his choose our side dish, Lipton noodles. He filled the saucepan with water, got the margarine from the refrigerator, emptied the packet into the water, and helped stir.



He also chose which fruit we'd eat.



Since I was taking pictures of him helping, he decided to take a picture of his daddy grilling the pork chops.



I've found another benefit to getting him to help with dinner. It makes him more interested in the food we're trying to get him to eat. If he had his way, he'd eat the same thing every day - Life cereal in the morning, a peanut butter and strawberry jelly sandwich for lunch and macaroni and cheese with cut up hotdogs in the evening. But since we refuse to make his meals different from the rest of the family, meal times have been a bit of struggle. I continue to offer him a range of foods, even if he's turned certain things away before. Some days he won't like something and other days he will. We're definitely getting tired of hearing him say, "I don't like that!" Especially when we know he does. But at least we're hearing it a little less these days!