The children always want to help when I’m in the kitchen – and I love that they do.
But I struggle finding things they can do to help.
More often than not, they want to help when I’m standing over a hot stove, when I’m chopping with my chef’s knife, or when I’m trying to get something clean (I cringe when they stick their grubby little hands in my rinse water!)
It just isn’t very easy to work in the kitchen with three preschoolers crowded around.
But I had some inspiration while I was getting ready for dinner tonight. I was serving mashed potatoes, which meant I needed to scrub and cut and boil and mash potatoes.
And I realized that scrubbing potatoes is the PERFECT activity for my little ones to “help” with. I scrub with my Norwex Veggie and Fruit Scrub cloth – and the kids will barely notice the difference between that and a clean dishcloth.
Off to the lawn with a bag of potatoes, a dishpan of water, a pan, my veggie cloth, and three dishcloths. Oh, and three preschoolers (the baby enjoyed watching from a nearby blanket!)
The kids “scrubbed” the potatoes and then handed them to me to finish. When all the potatoes were done, I dumped the extra water on the tomato plant and brought the potatoes inside.
Then the kids (two relatively dry, one sopping wet) headed to the front porch with papa to hammer nails while I gave the potatoes a quick rinse and got them ready for the stove.
Parenting win!