What Can I Say? He Likes Things Clean.

My carpet is the kind that hides a LOT, which is good (I guess), since my vacuum barely works. Sometimes I feel like I'm vacuuming "by hand" - which isn't fun, let me tell you! Thankfully, God gave me a little helper to lighten the load. For months now, Micah's been picking up little fuzzies, or bits of leaf, or whatever he can find on the carpet, and holding it up to me saying, "Eeewwww!" before throwing it in the trash can. The other day, he actually grabbed a tissue before picking up the fuzzy on the floor. You know, so that he wouldn't have to touch the fuzzy. Because that would just be gross.

His help doesn't just end there. The other day he ran up to me, got in my face, and with a worried expression in his big brown eyes, said, "Uh-oh." Needless to say, I was afraid, because that is usually not a good sign. Thankfully, I followed my scurrying one-year-old to nothing but an already dead fly lying on the carpet. The thing is, Micah didn't know it was already dead. I decided not to tell him. "Uh-oh," I said. Micah didn't wait any longer. He knew what to do. He ran off to his room to grab a very small, corduroy shoe, which was just precious in and of itself, and then he came back to the fly, and whacked it several times. Dead. Now he was sure of it. He led the way to the bathroom, where I grabbed a bit of toilet paper, and then he went back to the fly and picked it up with the tissue, ran back into the bathroom, tossed it in the toilet, and flushed. That boy has seen his mommy kill one too many spiders! (I can't wait until he actually CAN kill spiders for me!)

Anyway, another thing he helps me do is dust/clean. I use natural cleaners so that he can help me scrub, and the two of us have a good old time together wiping things down. My favorite part about it is how important and helpful I can tell he feels. (Those Colin eyes are very expressive!) The funny thing about it is how quickly his paper towel gets so dirty he feels he must throw it away. That's why in most of these pictures, it barely looks like he has any paper towel at all. I tear one up into several pieces so that it lasts a little while longer. Otherwise I'd have a trash can full of clean paper towels!

So, if you want to buy a Christmas present for Micah and you're not sure what to get him, I have a great idea: a toddler-sized vacuum cleaner! It will be sure to take a load off of both Micah and mommy's minds as the current one just doesn't seem to be doing the job.