My Helpful Little One

Ahh... the blessings of an intelligent child! How is it that we so excited that our child is bright, yet when they do something that is "helpful" they are being naughty and we find ourselves exasperated?!?! Sunday was one of those days! Actually, it was mostly amusing, but at the same time I had this sinking "we are in deep shit!" feeling about J, our 4-1/2 year old son.

J was able to accomplish 3 "helpful" tasks within an hour! Quite the resourceful little chap. The morning started off like any other morning. DH ran an errand for me while the boys and I stayed home. While we were upstairs, I was in our bedroom talking to DH on the phone (he had called to verify what it was that he was suppose to be purchasing for us) when I heard banging coming from the boys' room. As I was occupied on the phone and it sounded like a plastic toy being banged on something, I wasn't too concerned. So, upon completely my conversation with DH, I went to see what the noise had been. Well, my considerate son, J, had decided to move a plaque that was hanging over his bed to over his bother's bed so that when K wakes up in the morning he could see it. At least that is what he told me upon questioning him as to his intentions. It was a very nice thought as the plaque is K's and I simply hadn't gotten around to moving it when we had them switch beds. However.... this entailed J taking the ceramic plaque off the wall, taking the nail out of the hole, going over to K's bed and using his plastic toy hammer (thus the plastic banging) to hammer the nail into the wall where J thought it should go and then hanging the ceramic plaque on it - just as I walked in to see what he was doing..... UGH!! But, he was able to complete the task all by himself without any damage being done.

Then, J went downstairs to fix a piece of his Hot Wheels track. He decided that he would use Elmer's glue (thank God he decided on the Elmer's glue instead of the super glue!!) to repair a piece of his track that was coming off. Luckily, I intervened before he had opened the glue.

Not 30 minutes later, I hear K fussing at J to stop cutting K's hair. I didn't give this too much thought either - BIG MISTAKE - as they have several pairs of toy scissors that don't cut anything and they have being enjoy playing barber with them quite a bit lately. But, K kept on fussing and ran into the kitchen crying. I started fussing at J as I was trying to calm K down. The conversation went something like this:

Me: "J, were you cutting K's hair?"
J: "Yes, but I was using my scissors."
Me: "You better have been using play scissors and not real scissors!"
J: "I wasn't using 'real' scissors. I was using MY scissors. And, I cut my hair, too." (I had over-heard the discussion between the two of them that J had already cut his own hair so it was K's turn.)
Then, I notice a small tuff of hair on the kitchen floor!!
Me: "You did too use real scissors!! You know better than that!!"
J: "No, I didn't use 'real' scissors. I used MY scissors."
The "my scissors" that Julian had been referring to blunt-end child-sized Fiskers! I keep them in an upper-drawer of our hutch. Julian had pulled a chair over to reach them.
Me: "Why did you do that?"
J: "I needed my hair cut and wanted to save you from having to take me to the place to get my hair cut." Awww... how thoughtful! Luckily, you couldn't really tell on either of the boys where J had cut their hair.

About an hour later, I cut J's hair myself. It turned out pretty good. DH even thought so. :-)

So, with all of this "helping" - and the scary thing is that he really was trying to help each time!! - I don't have any idea how I am going to keep up with J, let alone stay one step ahead! LOL!! Ahh, the blessing of children!! I wouldn't miss it for the world!! And, it sure does make me smile thinking about it - heck, you just have to giggle about it - he was just trying to help!