Amelia's Chores

When the opportunity presents itself, I like to incorporate household responsibilities in Amelia's day to day activities.  She's still very young and her capabilities are limited. It also definitely slows things down and makes chores more difficult to complete for me, but I think it's worth it. 

When she completes a task, she has such a great sense of accomplishment and satisfaction.  I can't wait until she can REALLY help us out around the house, but here's what she does so far. 

Like I said before, it doesn't always work out.  These tasks can sometimes cause meltdowns or she just doesn't feel like doing it!

Getting Dressed

When she gets dressed, she has to put her dirty clothes in the laundry basket.  She does the same for when we dress Alex too.  She tries to dress and undress herself and I let her attempt to as much as possible before I step in.  And, as I mentioned in previous posts, she also likes to pick out her outfits.

Laundry

When I do laundry, she helps me put the clothes in the basket and (with my help) she put the clothes in the washer and/or dryer and takes them out.  Of course, one of her favorite things to do is push the buttons.  Our dryer has a see through door, so she enjoys watching the clothes tumble around.

She attempts to help me fold the laundry too.  Usually she just makes piles of the clothes outside the basket... or she just tries to "re-fold" what I've already done, which is really annoying, ha ha.  On a positive note, she's gotten pretty good at piling and sorting the cloth diapers, which is nice.

Dishes

Amelia is in charge of putting away the silverware.  I pull the silverware tray out of the drawer, put it on the floor and she takes the clean silverware from the dishwasher and sorts it into the tray.  (Note: I've pulled out all the knives and other dangerous items first!)  While she does that I empty the rest of the dishwasher, but leave all the plates.  After she sorts the silverware, she hands me the plates so I can put them away.  What's funny is that her absolute favorite thing to do is shut the dishwasher door once we've emptied it!

Meals

We open the fridge for her and she gets to chose wether or not she's having milk or water with her meal and take it to the table. After meals, she washers her hands. We help her turn the water on and off on her own and she also dries her hands on her own. She also puts her drink back in the fridge and helps me clean up her meal area by wiping and sweeping up.  I also help her put her dirty dishes in the dishwasher.