Working along side our children...

I have been making a concerted effort to have Keturah "help" me in everything I do. Cooking, laundry, cleaning - you name it. I don't want her entire day filled with just playing, I want to begin now by teaching her how to work and care for a family. I want to make it a joy as I teach her to serve her dad and brothers.

So, anytime it's time to do a chore, I go find her, scoop her up and bring her along while joyfully announcing, "It's time to wash the potatoes!" "It's time to cook dinner!" "We get to fold the laundry!" If I am sweeping, she holds the dustpan. If I'm putting things in the crockpot, she stirs it while I do. If I'm washing dishes, she sits on the counter in the next sink with her bare feet in the sink and rinses them. We only do it that way because she is so small, there is no chair or stool that would work. Any work she does, no matter how sloppy, I praise her and announce what she has done to her brothers and tell her what a good worker she is. "Yay! You rinsed the dishes and got the bubbles off!"

It is often messy having her help cook and wash... but I think it's more messy to see a teenager who can't do a thing for themselves or others. I am hoping that by teaching her *how* to do these things at two, that by four and then six, she will be well educated in how we fold a towel or how we make cookies(insert "salad" April G.). Haha, we love salad, but we love cookies too!

I was not taught how to work, cook or clean. I was not taught the value of organization or the virtue of having your home clean. Is that a virtue? Maybe that's the wrong word. I was a teenager who had a tornado bedroom. I see how it causes struggles in my life now. It is hard for me to make chores a priority... they should hold more importance in my mind than my actions say they do. LOL. So, my hope is to make that much easier for Keturah while also teaching her the joy of serving others.