Unloading the dishwasher

I'm somewhat of a laissez-faire sort of mother.   If it doesn't hurt anyone or anything, I'm probably going to let it slide, at least for a while.  This is somewhat challenging for my beloved husband, who's a little more... particular than I am.  Case in point is the toilet paper.  At some point in every child's life, they discover how much freaking fun it is to unroll a roll of toilet paper.  This stage doesn't last long, and I sort of accept it like I do spitting up.  I don't enjoy it - but it's a normal stage they go thru, and the best you can do is just soldier thru and hope it ends soon.  Marc hates it - he keeps trying to take the toilet paper and put it up where she can't reach it, on top of the toilet, the sink... in a variety of places and it inevitably ends up getting knocked into the potty, dramatic sigh.  I just roll it back up and resign myself to wrinkled toilet paper.

Right now - Julianna loves plastic dishes.  Cups, plates, bowls, sippie cups - you name it, she adores it.  I've got a cabinet where I specifically keep stuff the kids can't break.  As luck would have it, it's perfectly positioned for her to go thru it.  She also has a thing about hiding stuff, which is somewhat frustrating, as it takes me a while to realize that I don't ever seem to have any clean bowls, and then hunt them down and find them in the bottom drawer of the stove, along with a set of keys and Jessie's necklace.

But I digress... she's also really, really into unloading the dishwasher.  To be fair, she's also more than willing to load, but she's even worse than I am at stacking things neatly (and I'm terrible at it, just ask Marc :-).  But I let her unload the dishwasher all the time.  It makes her so happy, she gravely takes each plastic item out and stacks them up in some sort of system that makes sense to her.  And it entertains her for at least twenty minutes.  Twenty whole minutes when I can vacuum or fold laundry, or even pee by myself.  It's well worth it.  At least that what I tell Marc when he comes home and is perplexed as to why ALL of the plastic-ware is strewn gleefully all over the kitchen floor :-)