Service is Contagious

My kids taught me a great lesson today . . . service is contagious. There was some work that needed to be done today and so I asked the kids to help me out. The boys had some clothes that needed to be sorted and a closet that needed some rearranging, to make room for the sorted clothes. There was laundry in the dryer that needed to be folded and put away. I started helping Mason sort through and rearrange his clothes and asked Aaron to help Bailey put the dryer clothes in the clean clothes hamper for folding. Shortly after we started our assigned tasks, Lauren said she needed to go the bathroom (and being newly potty-trained, she still needs help). I asked Aaron to help her, so I could keep sorting clothes. He disappeared into the bathroom with Lauren.

I quickly got an idea to see if we could secretly "race" Aaron and surprise him. We finished sorting the clothes and getting them put away and then Bailey, Mason and I had a race to see how fast we could fold all the clothes in the hamper. Voila! We finished and Aaron and Lauren still hadn't emerged from the bathroom. So Mason and Bailey decided to quickly put their clothes away before he came out and I grabbed Aaron's clothes and was finishing putting them in his drawers when he came in the room. "You're putting my clothes away for me?" I said "Yep - I was trying to surprise you before you came in." He said thanks. A minute later, he comes in and whispers something to Mason and Bailey and says to me "Don't come downstairs for a little bit, okay Mom?"

A little while later (maybe 1/2 hour?), they called up to me and said I could come down. Aaron had made grilled cheese sandwiches for all the kids for lunch and made a cheddar & bacon salad for me! What a great surprise! We'll have to see if our secret service surprises continue . . .

Oh yeah - and the knitting class yesterday was a big success and Aaron and Mason both decided they wanted to learn. I got Aaron his own knitting needles and yarn last night and taught him to knit and purl . . . He has really gotten the hang of it and is enjoying it! Here's a picture: