The clothes get too short, the shoes get too small, the vocabulary grows, and I get closer to making level eye contact with them every year.  I guess it’s OK to start letting them do a few more challenging things.  Sigh…no guarantees that things will turn out well every time, but how else do they learn?

A few weeks ago, my oldest learned how to make an omelet at school.  She’s nine, so I suppose she’s at an age where she “gets it” about being careful with heat, but I was very reluctant to believe she’d be doing that in my house any time soon.  A few days later, with some convincing, I allowed her to do it only if I did the cutting (veggies) and hovered over her every move.

She did a fine job and was confidently careful with all the hot stuff.  Her sisters turned her into a short order cook and she ended up making four omelets that morning.  Hmm.  Not bad.  I even let her do it again just this
week.  I did the cutting again and didn’t leave the room, but I resigned to watch with concern from a little farther away.  I don’t think I’m ready to turn her over to regular saute’ duty or anything like that, but she just took a big growing up step.  I could be OK with a few omelets now and then.

I’ve been painting the kitchen this week and have had to shift and displace many things.  When I cleared out the china hutch, I just had everything on the counter.  I decided to clean them before moving them somewhere else for a few days.  My middle daughter, age seven, asked if she could move them for me.  Ummm…….well, I thought about my oldest doing the omelet and decided this could probably work.

I know that even though she isn’t as old as my omelet cooker, she is very careful and steady when working with something of value to her.  I had a feeling she would understand the value my china had to me as well.  I gave very specific directions of how to put towels down on the hearth of the fireplace, and then to take everything down one piece at a time.

She worked and worked for about twenty minutes until it was all down there.  I took a glance down the steps and went about painting.  Later, I went down to see her handiwork and I was glad I had trusted her to help me.  Everything was so carefully lined up in rows and stacked neatly as if they were her own precious pieces.  She also took a good sized growing up step.

My youngest?  Well, now I’m looking something a little big that she can try.  Not ready for the stove, probably not going solo walking with the china just yet.  But I know something good will come up and I’ll have the opportunity to try her out or turn her down.  I hope I recognize that time and give her the chance.  We could have had a burned arm or a broken plate with my older two, but we didn’t.  Doesn’t mean they won’t make some mistakes growing up either.  But now that I’ve had two good experiences, I can’t wait to help my youngest take a big growing up step too.

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    Last reviewed: 10 Jun 2009