I annoyed our youngest today. Like all kids under the age of teen, she has a natural desire to help out and do stuff. However, because she’s a tween, she apparently only likes to help out and do stuff once.

She Who Must Be Obeyed and our oldest were off to visit schools today which left me in charge of our youngest and random chores.

The first chore was to hang the laundry outside but that involved a couple steps. The first step is to unpack every other item from mesh bags She Who Must Be Obeyed insists on putting things in and which adds extra complications to what should be a fairly straight forward process. (That’s another post. If I’m smart I’ll never write that post.)

The other step was to take down and fold the laundry from yesterday. (That’s another post. If I’m smart I’ll never write that post either.) I took the dry laundry off the hangers and handed it to our youngest and said “fold this”. I had to provide a little instruction but she did a good job.

Later, it was my job to throw together some lunch. I reheated yesterday’s mushroom rice and whipped up a wilted spinach salad with bacon, tomato, olive oil and a dash of lemon juice. Our youngest seemed to enjoy the meal.

After we ate I cleared the table and told her to do the dishes. She went into preteen mode and ignored me. Later, when I reminded her to do the dishes, I got the “why?” and, oddly, I gave her an answer that didn’t involve “I told you so”. I told her I’d cooked and she got to clean. Also, it wasn’t that many dishes and I would do the biggest and most dangerous things (frying pans and knives). She grunted a response (which is clearly proof she’s practicing to be a teenager) and did nothing.

Eventually, I had to remind her to do the dishes. At that point she did them and even dried them and put them away.

Now it’s my turn to do the dishes. (Insert grunted response.)