The helpful years

Right now, Bit's favorite thing to do is to "help".  Now being 3, her 'helping' doesn't always.  Okay, so it doesn't most of the time!  She does her best to pin patterns to fabric, help me sew, tend to baby sister (which Boo does not appreciate!), and generally 'help'.  Today, we were moving boxes out of the house and into storage.  And by the time the girls got here, we were working on the sewing supplies.  I was sealing boxes of patterns and sending them out to the van when she showed up with, "What can I have, Aunt Laura?"  As proud as proud can be, she carried small, light boxes (on purpose on my part) out to the van.  And she was even prouder when she picked up the boxed sewing machine we picked up for her at a yard sale and carried it out.  We're planning ahead, you see.  Bit has been fascinated by sewing since she could crawl, and Boo seems to be following in her footsteps.  So when we found a cheapie kids' my-first-Singer for $10 a couple years back, we bought it.  We figure that even if we have to pay our repairman to service it to get it running perfectly, it's worth it. 

The helpful years, unlike the not being allowed to go to the bathroom alone stage, don't last long, so we figure that we need to use them to teach a few things.  Like picking up her own toys, putting her trash in the garbage, putting her book collection away, and putting her dishes in the sink.  Those are her 'chores' around here.  We're teaching her to clean up after herself (which is something some people never learn) right along with sharing, alphabet, colors, and numbers.  Yeah, I'm working on preschool curriculum with her.  She tries so hard to read, I figure that since I have the background and know how to do it, I ought to teach her how to read!

Tomorrow, I have the day off... mostly.  I'm going through my scrap bins and bags and sorting out what I want to keep and giving the rest away.  And then I start sewing together the girls' dresses that go over the undies I just finished.  After that, I need to finish the coats, and then retrieve some corduroy from storage for dresses.  It's barely gotten cold here, so now it the time for warmer dresses for my nieces.