Kids & Chores: A Useful Purchase

Immy loves to help with chores. She is clearly not planning on following in my domestically challenged footsteps! Here she is helping to hang the washing, a most favourite past time.

chores for kids
Her other favourite is helping with any form of food preparation or cooking. Previously she would pull a dining table chair over to the kitchen bench and climb up onto it to “help.” For an example, see the photo below where she is assisting in the preparation on brussel sprouts. Yes, that’s right as well as helping with cores, this child also eats brussel sprouts! (see this non-taster post for further explanation).

chores for kids
Our dining chairs are not the safest for climbing up or standing on as they have a curved seat and low sides. Before you suggest that we could have offered an outright ‘no’ to standing on the chair, on those few occasions that we tried, we then had to deal with the mysterious HAND that would reach up and over the bench, grabbing at random objects aka Thing from The Addams Family. Much better for her to be up where she can see and be told, “No, children don’t touch knives,” than have her reaching to swipe one off the bench!

Anyway, moving along, I found a solution… drum roll, please!

toddler chores

A handy two step stepladder!

This one cost under $30 at our local hardware store. As well as the two steps it has a good rail that runs up the sides and along the top for Immy to hold onto as she climbs up and down.

Admittedly, Immy is quite confident on her feet (she is now 23 months and has been walking for a year). I would probably not advise this as a solution for a toddler who is not so confident. Immy has actually fallen a couple of times, usually when she is reaching for something she shouldn’t be touching! We watch her closely and remind her to stand still and be careful and I don’t think it is any more of a concern than when she is playing about, climbing on the couch or on our bed.

P.S. In the photo of the stepladder we are making what were meant to be gingerbread shapes for Christmas! My dough assumed the consistency of a dried out cow pat for some bizarre reason, which proceeded to crumble if you even looked at it. However, as Immy had helped me to prepare the dough, we did roll out a small portion with much precariousness for her to cut a few cookies and we baked them. She didn’t seem to mind crumbly gingerbread cookies at all!

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7 Comments

  1. A devoted kid stool is a great idea. Ours keep climbing up on kitchen chairs, and I have the same fears about random hands. We have cutting boards that slide out of the counters, and I can't count how many times I've had to remind them "No hands on the cutting board!"

    I'm really paranoid about them falling, but I guess learning to climb and stand safely is better than them falling off the kitchen table because they don't have a safe place to climb and don't know how.

  2. How cute is she! Did you use the recipe that I gave you or did you find another one? Miss you xx

  3. Tammy James says:

    Ah Christie you have a way with words…'dried out cow pat' and the thing from the Adams family had me giggling in recognition and remembrance of those little hands blindly reaching up above head height grabbing at whatever treasures awaited up there out of sight range!

  4. Oh yes, what a fabulous idea! We always used our 3 step ladder.. the third step was just a little too scarey for me to watch LOL

  5. we have a 2 step step ladder in the kitchen since the girls we born – and they have always used it – however now there are fights and it really isnt big enough for two – and it is likely that one child will get muscled off

  6. Thinking back many years, I now realise my daughter had not the slightest interest in any domestic chores whatsoever. My son, on the other hand, when small always loved to watch me sew!!! Funny world when you have kids.
    By the way Christie I would have enjoyed some crumbly gingerbread bikkies. Don't hide them next time.

  7. Rizoleey.wordpress.com says:

    that looks like the ladder I had for Zoe at a similar age. We have now moved onto Bar Stools, She has one as is and I tied a booster seat/high chair on one for Riley. Kids love to help and see.

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