The Purpose Driven Toddler

Katya loves to have a job to do. This morning I sorted out dirty laundry in the bedroom and had gone into the laundry room to put soap in the washing machine. In comes Katya, holding the top item from the pile of clothes I was going to wash. "Why thank you!" I exclaimed as she held it up to me. She got a big grin on her face and headed back to the bedroom. A minute later she was back with the next piece of clothes. She did this for the whole pile, one or two pieces at a time. It would have been much quicker for me to go scoop up the whole pile myself, but she felt so important and it was completely her idea.
Her favorite job is to put silverware in the dishwasher. As soon as she hears the dishwasher door open and Brent or me putting dishes in, she scurries over and stands between us and the dishwasher, hand up in the air. When all the silverware is in and the dishes are loaded she pushes the rack in and closes the door all by herself.
She also likes to help put away groceries. I keep the canned goods in a low cupboard and when we come home from shopping, I put the bags in the floor and she fishes out all the cans and puts them away.
Sometimes she gets a little carried away, though. We don't let her get into the cupboard under the sink at all, and one day while Brent and I were talking in the kitchen, Katya walked in, opened the cupboard door and started to put something in the garbage. "What's that?" Brent asked as he fished it away from her. It was an old piece of food from lunch and she was tidying up!
It's hard to tell, but this picture shows Katya feeding the cats. Everytime we go outside now, she grabs the bowls and takes them over to where we keep the food, wanting us to fill them up. Sometimes a bowl still has food in it and when she picks it up, the food goes flying. Then she starts picking up each individual piece of cat food, one by one.
In case you're starting to think this child is a one year old neat freak, let me assure you, she's not-- as a quick tour through the house at any given moment will show you. Toys in the toy box get flung out then carted from room to room, books are cast down from the shelves, newspapers are spread artistically across the floor, any bag that is found to have stuff in it must have its contents completely emptied--shall I go on? Does she go back and put these things back? Nope!