Mother’s Little Helper

Seventeen times a day, I hear Olive say, “Can I help you in any way?” Really. She LOVES to help. She always has. In the kitchen. With the laundry. Scooping the cat poop. The list goes on.

I always have a little shadow following me around the house, dusting and straightening right along with me – even RE-dusting and RE-straightening things I just did! I am so ill with the OCD, this we know, but I think I may have met (birthed) my match.

The child’s feet have barely touched the floor in the morning before the bedsheets are pulled up, the quilt straightened, and the menagerie placed. Nearly every day, she painstakingly arranges her various treasure boxes and can recall in an instant where every rock, shell, and coin can be found. And the folding. My God, the folding. When I ask her to pick up her clothes or invite her to help with the laundry, it’s like observing an origami master class. And the other day, she sighed after spotting the stack of cloth napkins in the pantry because “somebody didn’t face them all the same way.” This after she proclaimed that “Daddy needs a lesson on how to load the dishwasher – this is a mess.” Okay, so maybe she overheard and just repeated that last one. Maybe.

And I know she’s the same way at school. This year especially, she’s been pouring on the assistance, helping with everything from extra gardening duties to Official Condolence Card-making for a series of pet losses the school staff has endured. She’s even taken to reading to “the little kids” before their departure, while the other “big kids” prepare for lunch. Her teachers have both pulled me aside to say what a huge help she is – always volunteering, always happily.

So this weekend is the GGMS campout, and knowing Olive, she’ll have the tent pitched, the fire built, and the marshmallows roasted before we can say “Kumbaya.”