I think ‘toddler’ is the definition of inefficiency. Last week Reagan was attempting to teach herself how to use a spoon while eating soup #longestmealever. No doubt there was more soup on herself than what made it in her mouth, but she has to learn sometime, and she was SO proud of herself. I helped her a little along the way, and God bless her, when she puts her mind to something, she doesn’t give up (Where could she have ever inherited that from?). When we go for a walk or to the store and she isn’t in the stroller or the shopping cart, we don’t get anywhere fast. Our “trail” would resemble something akin to a plate of spaghetti. As inefficient as it might be for this efficiency momma, I’ve tried to be intentional about creating the time and space to allow for this type of freedom and exploration.
Today Reagan wanted to vacuum. I had pulled the vacuum out to try to suck up the human-eating sized spider that graced my wall this morning, and of course, Reagan wanted to help. She often does—she has swept and mopped the kitchen floor many times and scrubbed countless things with baby wipes. If momma is wiping down the fronts of all the cupboards in the kitchen, so is Reagan. She is delighted (so far, least—knock on wood—she hasn’t hit her terrible twos yet!) to wipe down her high chair tray at the end of every meal. Sweet—saves me time!
A couple days ago we were in the kitchen and I was prepping dinner and Reagan had had a granola bar for a snack and I asked her to put the wrapper in the garbage. Although many times I’ve told Reagan what I’m doing when I’m throwing trash away, I have never actually walked her through the process. To my pleasant surprise, she grabbed the wrapper, walked over to the garbage, and put it inside. A little while later I noticed her pick up a plastic snack bag that was sitting on the floor and, on her own volition, she walked over to the garbage can and threw it away. Talk about one happy momma! While one part of me is overjoyed that this could help my desire to make things more efficient, the other part of me fears that she won’t always know the difference between trash and treasure and accidentally throw away something that we still need.
And today, momma was vacuuming, so that is what Reagan had to do. Our living and dining rooms aren’t large and there isn’t much carpet area, but she vacuumed it all about two to three times, and even at that point, I had to really convince her that we were done vacuuming. I could have gotten this space vacuumed in probably three to four minutes. Instead, however, she vacuumed for at least 15-20 minutes and loved it. By definition, this wasn’t very efficient, but it sure brought me joy to help her do something she was excited about. And, why not take advantage of the fact that she actually wants to help vacuum? I pray every day that she has a heart that is humble and kind and wants to help others. If I can integrate this into everyday life, regardless of how inefficient it may be, then perhaps she, too, will know the value of loving inefficiently.