December 13

I have a really pleasant, delightful child. He is funny, smart, and loving.

One thing he doesn't do so well? Entertain himself when I need to do something.

Exhibit A: What Caleb did while I made dinner tonight. (Pardon the poor photo quality - short days mean terrible lighting, and I was too busy making dinner to fully attend to my camera settings.)

First, he decided to empty the contents of my cutting board and baking sheet cabinet. You know - the cabinet that was directly underneath/in front of me while I was cooking. The cabinet that was as close to me as possible,and the cabinet that was the most in my way. He emptied that one.

Some of his favorite pans?

He found this cooling rack to be quite entertaining.

Then he discovered my pizza pan. 

He thought he was pretty funny when he sat right in the middle of it.

Once he had his fun with the cabinet, he moved on to the drawer full of dish towels.

Emptied.

I did make the conscious parenting choice to allow him to do these things instead of saying no. I also made the choice to photograph them, which probably reinforced in his little head that this is a funny thing to do.

But.

He didn't hurt anything.

He wasn't clinging to my legs.

I was able to make dinner (relatively) uninterrupted.

He got to explore new things.

Unfortunately, he's not quite at the point yet where he understands "clean up your mess", or is a willing participant in the picking up process. Which meant that I had to bend and bend and bend to pick everything up. I'm hoping that will help me stay limber as this belly of mine gets bigger? I'm also hoping that soon (very soon) he will begin to help pick things up. It's going on the goal list for 2011.