Another Cinderellie Post

I don't actually force my daughter to clean up after me.  I want to get that clear.  In fact, some of her cleaning efforts -- for example the one detailed in this post -- end up making a far greater mess than there was before she began to help.

She likes to help, though.  She has, since before she could walk, been willing and excited to go and throw things in the trash.  Anything, really, but specifically things she has been asked to put there.  And I have previously noted her vacuuming skills.  And then the other day, she insisted on "doing dishes, Mommy, in the sink by myself.  Ellie do it.  Ellie POUR."

And so she did.

She began by examining the apparatus very, very carefully.

Then she painstakingly filled a cup full of water

and from a height and angle higher and more oblique than wisdom would dictate, she tried to pour the water from her cup into a cup sitting in the sink.

In fairness to her, it could have made more mess.  Somehow.  She dribbled down the front of her shirt (only to be expected), on the counter (clearly indicated), and on the floor (probability was high).  I got down on the floor to mop up after her, but made the rookie mistake of forgetting to take her cup away from her and turn the water off, so while I was down mopping, she poured an entire cupful of water on my head and neck and the floor.

So not, on the surface, very helpful.

Except, of course, that my floor got cleaner where I had mopped it.  So there's something in it.