Progress

After posting about Matthew's difficulties lately, I thought I'd better write about some of the progress the kids are making these days. Last night I made tater tot casserole for dinner and I thought it would be a good time to have Sam help in the kitchen. He loves to help me out and I admit that I don't give him the opportunity very often. I was feeling especially ambitious a few weeks ago and decided to let Sam try to crack an egg (he had been wanting to do it for awhile) and it actually went pretty well. I let him softly tap the egg and make a crack, then I opened the egg. He tried opening an egg once and got a little dirty, so he was not too anxious to try it again. Matthew also wanted to crack an egg, but he didn't quite understand that you tap gently (so he pretty much just crushed the egg on the counter) thus we ended up with a lot of egg running down the cabinets and on the floor. I knew that was a possibility going into our egg-cracking so I wasn't disappointed or upset. Hey, I let a two- and four-year old crack eggs. What do you expect? They enjoyed it and learned a bit too and we cleaned up the mess and moved on.

So back to tater tots. I remember putting the tater tots on the casserole when I was growing up, so I passed on the torch to Sam. He was excited to help and did a great job.

The picture below is what the kitchen counter looked like after breakfast this morning. The kids have been working on clearing their dishes after they're done eating and while I have to ask them to do so, they are making great progress. Sam is very brave and stacks up all his dishes and carries them at once, while Matthew takes his one by one. Either way, they are growing up! What good little boys!