Ms Helpy Helperton

My little one takes care of everyone. After she discovered my injured toe she was very distressed. She gave it a pat and a kiss and made sure everyone was very careful around Mommy. She loves to rock and feed her babies. To be clear, everything is a baby to Riley. She is equally happy to push a baby doll or stuffed animal in her stroller as she is to push bunny shaped sidewalk chalk or a picture of a baby. It's in her blood to be a nurturer. I used to carry band aids and Tylenol at all times even when I was single. I often baked cookies for my coworkers and my first car was a station wagon.

Today I pulled a t-shirt and shorts out of pile of hand-me-downs my friend's daughter gave me. I didn't even look at it until I sat down in the living room and Riley pointed to me. It turned out it was a black shirt with Joker from Batman drawn on it. I started to wonder if maybe it was scary. Miss Roo toddled over to me. She made her fakest fake cry, as it turned out on behalf of the scary clown on Mommy's shirt. She then proceeded to "share" her chicken nuggets. After she had made the appropriate eating sounds she noticed crumbs from Joker's "snack". When Riley sees a mess she doesn't just say the word in her sweet little high pitched voice she says it in a low gravely voice that reminds me of the “ Whaaaaaat's Up!” guys. So having exclaimed, "mess!" she immediately started brushing off my shirt. So helpful.

She's also very concerned about where things go. The other day she brought me a sample paint container and paint brush. I smiled and politely requested she put them back. Hours later I wondered into my room excepting to find the items in the middle of the floor. To my surprise she had put them back in exactly the same spot they came from. Amazing. Not a lot of toddlers are actually helpful very often, despite their best efforts.

Aside from being nurturing, tidy and very sweet Riley is also mechanically inclined. She helped Daddy put together the new lawnmower. She brought him his screwdriver, which she can correctly identify thanks to Handy Manny. She brought him instructions, wheels, the bottle of oil it was adorable. They were like a surgeon and scrub nurse. She was very taken with the oil bottle she brought the empty bottle (with the lid screwed tightly on) over to the flower bed and "oiled" the flowers. She is only one after all, but her heart was in the right place

Feathering the Nest

We were up and out bright and early eager to get the new house ready. Mike took the day off. It was a beautiful day we both drank an inordinate, probably unhealthy, amount of coffee and picked up a few things. By far my favorite is this kid size recliner I've had my eye on for awhile. Riley's a big fan. I think it's very likely that it is one of the only pieces of furniture we'll buy for the new house.

Riley testing out the new chair in the family room.

Miss Roo sticking Sesame Street stickers to yellow paper ("wella pap!") and watching Follow That Bird while Mommy and Daddy paint.

I'm not an expert painter by any means. It's lack of experience on my part. I put a foam pillow down on the floor to sit on, taped the wall to the best of my ability, opened the paint, set it on the drop cloth and went to work painting the baseboards. It was super important to tape carefully because the walls are a sage green and the tile is white as opposed to the chocolate brown we're painting the trim.

This is what Riley was up to while I painted. My 19mo old assembles furniture, what does yours do?

I'm pretty sure I mentioned my little girl's fondness for tools. She swooped in on Daddy's reassembly product like a pro. She picked up the screwdriver, circled the structure studying it and then put the screwdriver exactly where it belonged. It was really cute. She even tightened some screws with Daddy's help.

While they were being adorable and productive behind me I finished the first section of baseboards I'd taped off. I crawled off the foam pillow and started taping farther down the wall. When I say "crawling" it was more like dragging myself on my belly with my legs straight behind me. When I sat up my legs were bent behind me and I reached behind me to stabilize myself. I put my hand down in paint and thought I was touching the lid of the paint can, but I was very much stuck that way. Since I couldn't jump up I yelled for Mike. It was the loud cussing behind me that was my clue it was worse than I thought. I had kicked the whole can over and not on the drop cloth it was sitting on. I kicked it onto the tile. it was horrific. I felt terrible.

I drenched my cool shoe and there was a massive dark pool congealing on the floor. I murdered my floor and my shoe was in critical condition. I also severely injured my sense of calm. It went from bad to worse as we scrambled to paint as much as possible before the spilled paint dried. My hands were so coated in paint they were sticking to my brush handle. It was a race and I was losing. Eventually, Riley wondered over to hug her frazzled Mommy and shuffled away tracking more paint across the floor.

I didn't understand that this paint wasn't going to wash off my skin the way the paint we used on the walls did. Mike ran out to get paint thinner and I dropped a drowsy Miss Roo at Boo's house to take her nap safe from fumes. I scrambled back and scrubbed the floor and myself until my head ached from the fumes. I decided to make up for it by painting Isaac's room until I couldn't raise my arms anymore. Also, in a pinch you can totally substitue angry paint rolling for angry scrubbing.

It was a long day. The paint came off the floor and my skin, but my shoes has a permanent brown splotch. I'm hoping it looks more artistic than "she stepped in paint." We did get the trim finished in record time which was cool. Mike and Riley got the whole entertainment center together too. The best thing in the end was that the new chair we got for the kids is just my size. I'm not joking. Check this out:

I really like it. It's super cushy on my back and my feet touch the floor. Riley may have to fight me for it in the future.

Blogging in the tiny chair (from now on).