The Little Helper

Tyler is becoming quite the little helper these days. Yesterday, for the first time, he helped bring in the garbage cans from the road (he brought in a lid). You would think this is a fairly easy process, but here's how a one year old does it.

It all starts when we pull in the driveway after school/work. I put him down in the driveway so I can get stuff out of the car and he immediately takes off across the street to go see Barclay. I chase him over there and we visit for a while. This is normal everyday routine around here.

Yesterday, on his way back to our house, he spots the garbage cans and stops to pick up a lid and decides he will take it back across the street (we're now back in Karen and Ben's yard again - they're Barclay's Mom and Dad) and we greet Ms. Karen with our lid as she comes home from work. We throw it in her yard, talk for a while, go inside so she can give us the name lists Dave and I made when I was pregnant (she found them in our baby name book we let them borrow). We go back outside, pick up the good ole' lid and slowly start making our way back across the street (not without a few more distractions including another dog and some kids). Along the way, he drops it in the middle of the street, gets to the driveway, drops it again, steps on it, sits on it and then finally starts on the home stretch to put it away. This was all done alone...heaven forbid I try to help. Ahhh...such independence :) 45 minutes later we finally got in to the house. I'm thinking in the future we could work on speeding up the process, but for now I'm happy to let Tyler put away the garbage cans at his own pace :)




The grocery store is also a place where his helping comes in handy. First thing that happens when we get there is he points to the deli counter letting me know he'd like to make a pit stop to grab a piece of cheese before we start shopping. Then, we go down the aisles and he points to things he recognizes and likes (mostly Ritz crackers and Cheese-its and I usually end up opening the Cheez-its before we get to the checkout counter). He needs to have a snack since he usually spends his time in the store staring and talking with people (at least now he says "Hi" when he's staring people down) and this usually leads to some interesting conversations.

A while back, he was "talking" with a lady and she told me babies with prominent heads are very smart - ha ha! Nice way to reference his 95th percentile noggin! Last week at the store, Tyler was having another conversation with an older man and the man insisted that we were Irish. After explaining that Scottish and Welsh are the closest we get to Irish he finally accepted that and then told me Tyler is going to be president one day (my comment was "Great, maybe I can retire early!"). So, you've heard it here first, straight from the Acme...in 2035 you might have a Cheez-it loving, smart (because of the prominent head) presidential candidate!

Until he runs for President, I think he'll probably just lay low and keep watching Sesame Street, probably drag a few more garbage can lids across the street 100 times and work on moving up to the Toddler room at school. We'll keep it real :)

Sesame street stops this kid in his tracks - he loves it!