Chores

Heather, being the good house wife that she is, routinely does the laundry, folding up everything that comes out of the dryer and putting it up.  Sara Beth, being the good baby she is, gets into everything, and tries to mimic her mother's activities.  In this case, she is trying to figure out how to fold towels; Heather makes it look so easy.

Heather also will vacuum the carpets.  Sara Beth will follow around with her "vacuum" and make a "hrmmm hrmmm hrmmm" noise in imitation of a real vacuum.  If anyone is looking for a good business idea, here's a doozy: sell a fully functional toddler sized vacuum cleaner.  That way, when they play around the house, it is actually cleaner than when they started.

I was out in the garage, working on guy stuff, and Sara Beth was out there with me.  She kept crawling towards all the cool stuff that had the potential to hurt her, and so I sat her in my car.  She was so excited about it, I had to snap a picture.  With all the knobs and switches in the Porsche, it was just like one of her toys.  I was able to get stuff done, and she had a great time bouncing in the drivers seat and pulling all the Kleenex out of the side door compartment. 

After a hard day of work, there is nothing quite like taking Sara Beth to the pool.  She loves to be tossed about between Heather and me, or just straight up in the air.  There is no fear in her as I cannot toss her too high.  Her only request is that I keep her head above water.  If she goes under, then she will cough and sputter and want to be held for a little while before the acrobatics are resumed.

After her high-flying act, we came in and worked on the delicate coordination skills.  She would take her large plastic coins and put them one at a time into her piggy bank.  She would carefully position the coin in the slot and then push it in.  Her levels of concentration were very high as she repeated the process of putting a coin in, and then pulling it out of the door on the side.  If I tried to help guide the coin with my hand, she would push it off with a waive of her hand, and would get back to doing it all by herself.

We have noticed Sara Beth will often pull herself up on her two feet, then let go of whatever she held onto.  She falls back onto her backside, but the duration between letting go, and falling over has increased.  Heather found a inflatable pool for the backyard.  SaraB will experiment with standing up in there, and will recklessly flop over on her side.  The eight inches of water cushions her fall so well that she has no qualms about practicing her standing abilities.