Dot is VERY helpful, although she doesn’t really do her own chores yet. She basically works alongside me every morning as we wash and dry a load of laundry and pick up the bedroom. She helps restock our fridge with water bottles, and helps Grandma put away dishes. I allow a little bit of extra time for my morning chores since I know it is very important to let her help and encourage the enjoyment of homemaking in her.
In the evening I have an hour housecleaning time and Grandma helps her pick up her toys. I’m hoping that seeing her things put away every day will develop an appreciation of orderliness. It seems to be working so far.
I am happy that I’ve managed to get some things growing in the garden, but it won’t matter if Dot keeps picking the flowers off of the vegetable plants! I even noticed a couple of pumpkins growing in the furrows of the cucumbers.
Grandma took Dot in for her nap today. Dot screamed and hollered and then didn’t want her jammies on and just crawled into her bed. So Grandma left – said she talked to herself for a little bit then just fell asleep! Wow for the first time that has EVER happened at naptime!
We did some gardening today. I’m having a hard time keeping Dot from playing in the freshly turned dirt. When I planted the pumpkins, I had smashed an old pumpkin to the side for the seeds, and there were a bunch left in a pile there, which Dot thought was her private supply of seeds. The pumpkin patch has one mound with a bunch of seedlings coming up that Dot planted herself. I might have random pumpkins coming up in the main garden, too, thanks to her stealth planting, lol!
I was so proud of her at dinner today – she ate most of her meatloaf, had seconds of both mashed potatoes and green beans (and said “Thank you Mom”), and ate nearly the whole thing with her fork! I even let her have her applesauce and she ate the entire thing with her spoon and didn’t spill a bit!
I think the applesauce has worked – Dot’s system seems to be back to normal. She is eating better, too. Hooray!
Dot spent the morning playing with my dead pumpkin (I smashed it for seeds), getting into the dog’s water, dismantling my hills in the garden, and getting muddy (that means painted red with clay). Then we both had a bath.
Dot spent nearly all day outside today. She played while I weeded and prepped the herb garden area most of the morning, and spent all afternoon outside while the entire family got the soil ready for planting. She was so wide awake that we just skipped the nap altogether. Amazingly she was happy and pleasant all evening long, and even fell asleep about half an hour early! I may reconsider skipping her nap in favor of going to church, if she seems to handle it well once in awhile.
