"Oh No!"

How long does it take for a child to start picking up after themselves once they have noticed they are messy?

Over the weekend we went to base leaving Kaitlyn's toys all over the living room floor. When we returned Kaitlyn stopped in the doorway looking at all her toys and said, "oh no". Neal and I both were rolling. We saw the mess that shocked her.

On a positive note she is getting better at helping me pick up her toys. I've tried saying, "bring me your toys" and that doesn't work so I moved to "bring me the.... (books, people (Little People), rings and so on)" and it works like a charm. Some times I do have to follow up my "bring me..." statement with "do you want a spank?", but the job always gets done.

Kaitlyn's big thing right now is to stuff toys in a box, cubbies in her little kitchen set, and her Little People house or bus. Last night she was cramming discovery blocks (clear blocks with fun things in the middle) into her Little People house. she was using the doors and open windows as her stuffing holes of choice. Suddenly shrieking broke out "Stuck! Stuck! Stuck!" She looked at me as though I was awful for not helping. The child had put one to many blocks into the house and couldn't get the door close. After a lot of crying she finally moved on to dumping it all out and trying again. I didn't know she even knew the word "stuck", but she has started using it a lot.