Laundry

Elena is learning to do her own laundry today. She has had her own laundry basket for a while now, but today after she said, "Mama needs to wash my laundry," my mother suggested she learn to wash it herself. She took to this with enthusiasm and managed to get her load washing in the machine very minimally assisted by me. The reason I was motivated to write a not about this wasn't so much that her accomplishment was so amazing; it's what I noticed in myself. Walking her through how to do laundry without jumping in to help requires more patience than I often have. It's painfully slow. It was very tempting to jump in and do some of it for her (though she wasn't asking me to help). I did better, though, when I thought of it as a school activity. And, of course, reminding myself that even though it takes more of my time now to help her learn this task, it will mean less time for me in the future when she masters it.

And being able to put it into her school log really helps my mind, which tends to like to check things off of lists (I can write it under the "developmental activities" section of her Sonlight book).