Little helpers. Or not.

Last night while I was making dinner, Madeleine stood wailing for me at the gate between the dining room and kitchen. I had to just tune it out and ignore her, because I wasn't about to let her into the kitchen near the hot stove. After about ten minutes she quieted down and crawled off to play, and I exhaled a huge sigh of relief, thinking she was learning to self-soothe and entertain herself. After I had things simmering enough that I could walk away from the stove for a minute, I poked my head into the dining room to check on the girls and discovered the reason for Madeleine's quiet, engaged behavior:



In case you can't tell, those are tissues that she had shredded all over the table.



And all over the floor:



Helpful child.

My other helpful child gave me a dressing down this morning. I asked her if she saw my water glass, and if so, could she bring it to me?
"Mom," she scolded, staring at me like I'm a big dummy, pointing at my water glass on the table. "It's right here. Come on, Mom, that's not very fast."

I'm guessing that by "fast" she means "difficult," since I often reprimand her for whining to me that she can't find some toy or another, when she hasn't even really looked and it's right in plain sight. In fact, I could hear myself in her tone and gestures. "Come on, Julia, it's right here. That's not very hard to find. You didn't even bother to look..."

I have created a little mini-me. As Madeleine would say, "UH-OH!"