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Cleaning boy

Luke likes to clean more than either of the girls ever did. This evening, after Luke and Amanda's shower, Michael asked Amanda to dump some water out of the toys that the kids were playing with. Luke heard this, dumped the water out of the toy that he was holding (he didn't even dump it on the floor!), put it in the corner where we keep the toys, and then collected all the other toys and put them away.

He really enjoys putting dishes away when the dishwasher is clean. I just ask him to come over and help and he busily puts all of the kids plates, bowls and cups into the drawers that they belong in---I don't need to direct him, he does it by himself. The only time that this creates a problem is when he tries to put dirty dishes from the dishwasher into the cupboards.

He really loves using a broom. So much so that he will take his bowl of (dry) cereal and dump it on the floor, run to the closet, get the broom, and start pushing the cereal around on the floor. I hope that he's getting some of the theory of sweeping from his play, otherwise it's merely an episode in frustration for his mother.

He likes to dump things out (legos, the contents of my kitchen drawers, baskets of toys, laundry baskets full of clean clothes, and so on) and carry things from one place to another (I found the kitchen sink stopper under his crib the other day). If not for this, I would be making real progress in organizing. The other day I was trying to organize the "pfiles" (piles of files) we have accumulated while our filing cabinet was downstairs. I was able to put some things in new file folders, and throw out a lot of old papers. Luke saw me throwing out the papers, grabbed one of the new files and tried to throw that away.

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