Monday mornings are always a bit slow around here.

Sunday evenings blur as we rush to leave for Awanas by 4:45 P.M. (too early to eat supper–see my latest sidebar survey), and we return home by 8:30-ish just famished! Thankfully, my dear husband always has his special dish prepared for us: peanut butter and scrambled egg sandwiches on toast, plus whatever he can scrounge up for a side. Still, we all get to bed after ten o’clock, nothing unusual for me and hubby, but it’s enough of a late night that my two older girls sleep in a bit on Monday morning. (Another plus to homeschooling!)

I normally am the chief dishwasher on weekend nights, while the girls do them on weeknights, but lately toddler has been champing at the bit to finish her supper, dump her plate in the sink and begin the washing all by herself. She just LOVES to wash dishes, usually with 7 yo by her side. Since it was wa-ay too late for such a long drawn out process last night, I promised her I’d save them for her to do this morning while we started school.

Up early (of course, when are toddlers not, I ask you?) she dragged me out of bed, slurped down a carton of strawberry yogurt and protested at me filling the sink with hot, soapy water.

“Don’t wash without me!” (wish you could have seen her yogurt besmeared mug!)

“I’m not, I’m just filling it up for you.” (and discreetly pre- scrubbing all the silverware and cups–just in case…)

We pushed two chairs up to the sink and tied her Winnie the Pooh halter-apron on, and got to work. Two chairs? One for the soapy sink, and one for the rinsing sink–this way she could walk her way to the dish drainer. By the way, this is a great way to ensure your kitchen floor a clean start for the day…

Anyway, children even as young as 3 love to help, don’t they? And when it comes to washing dishes, I don’t know if any toy compares, at least not currently, to my three year old.

Well, excepting maybe “Frog”, our four-week-old fluffy Border Collie…