How to Help for Dummies (by a 3 year old)

I wonder if everything Katie and I have ever done wrong (mostly me though) has decided to catch up to us and nip us in the buds. I say this because dear little Caleb has found some very interesting ways of helping around the house. It makes me wonder how the inner workings of a three year old's mind works. Ben might be able to help us on that one. ;) Here are many of the most recent things Caleb has done to make the house a better place.

1. In our guest bathroom there is a toilet paper roll hanging just above the garbage can. He decided that rolling it into an organized mess into the garbage can was a lovely idea. It was quite funny to see actually. Instead of letting that all go to waste I happily dug it out of the can (since the TP was the only thing in there) and placed it on the back of the toilet where it could continue to be used.

2. While the front door was being fixed from a Dezi escape (that happened while Katie was in San Antonio in Feb. '09) Caleb got the brilliant idea that if he saw mommy and daddy painting that he could pitch in and help out too. Thankfully this was noticed with time to easily fix his "helping idea" but in the family room we noticed brown paint on the white baseboards. Problem fixed with the white paint but Caleb felt he had done more ill than good so we had to reassure him that it wasn't the right thing to do but it was definitely a nice gesture.

3. Katie was looking for a quart of paint she thought she had misplaced. When Caleb heard he got very excited and told us where to find it. We looked in the direction he was pointing and saw a wet can of paint sitting on our beautiful leather couches. Once again, caught with time to spare. We wiped down the settling paint with baby wipes and Clorox wipes and saved the day. Some things obviously still need to be kept out of reach. You think we'd have learned that lesson already.

4. Caleb had a friend over yesterday and they were having a great time messing around in the family room. All we knew is that they were playing with a bunch of the cookie cutters. It wasn't until a little bit later that we noticed Play-Dough (which has since been trashed) was involved. They did their best to mash the PD into the carpet and cut out shapes of it with the cookie cutters. Caleb wasn't too thrilled about having to clean up but there was PD deep in the carpet. We think we got it all cleaned up by using excessive amounts of baby wipes and Resolve. So far we haven't seen any blue in the sea of gray/brown carpet.

We certainly love having a helper around. He makes us proud and we love him to pieces. It amazes me how a little mind works and how it processes help with the always prevalent curiousity that runs amuck in an active toddler. I guess its better than having idle hands and hopefully it'll only serve him as he gets older to be a good helper in all that he does.