Things to do (not do?) with your toddler

Parker loves helping me cook. When I'm whipping up some eats I put Parker on the counter and let her help me. She scoops flour into the bowl. Puts pasta in the pot. Mixes the ingredients in the bowl. You can tell by the look on her face how happy she is to help her mama.

So I got the brilliant idea to let Parker go to town "cooking" on her own terms. I laid down a blanket and went to get the rest of the supplies. In the 10 seconds I turned my back Parker decide to be a goof and went walking around the house with the blanket on her head. The only problem was that the dishwasher was open and she walked right into it. Note to self: do not keep the dishwasher open.

I laid the blanket down again with different sized Tupperware, oats, rice, spoons, measuring cups, and other scooping tools. OMG you would have thought it was Christmas morning.

Look! I can scoop from one bowl to the next with the spoon! And with the measuring cup! And with my hands! (Syd obviously had a good time too).

And then she realized that she could chuck it across the room.




I'm no neat freak. As long as no one is getting salmonella in my house and it doesn't look like I'm staging for an episode of Hoarders I'm fine. So I sat back and let it happen. With a face like this I wasn't about to stop it.


After a good 15 minutes rice throwing lost its appeal. No big deal, I'll vacuum it up. I turn our central system vac to the hardwood floor setting. Hmmm, it's not really picking anything up. Better switch to the carpet vacuum mode. Bad idea. The force was too much. It shot rice and oats everywhere. Into the kitchen. Into the breakfast nook. Into the foyer. I couldn't help but crack up at the disaster. That made Parker laugh. Which made me laugh even more.

Eventually I got most of it vaccummed to never never land but I have a feeling that we'll be finding rice and oats around our house for a long, long time.

If you're an anal house cleaner this probably isn't your cup of tea. But if you like to kick back and let your toddler do as toddlers do, experiement, well you may want to give it a try. Have fun cleaning rice up for the next five months!