The cat has been sitting comfortably on my warm laptop and seems to have gone through all the blogs on my feed reader, an even opened one of them. Presumably she hasn't managed to leave any comments. She is now most disgruntled by not being allowed to sit on either my lap or the laptop, even though there is a lovely warm fire blazing. She's only leaving my drink alone as it's too hot.
I finally found the rooibosh tea by powers of deduction and logic. I had been searching through the bags of shopping, (rather than put it away first) as I wanted a cup of tea before that task. I had given up and taken the children upstairs. While I was in the middle of the story I remembered that Freddie had taken one of the shopping bags into the car; maybe it was still under his seat. He was asleep by this time so I couldn't ask him. No, he had brought it inside, apparently, but I hadn't found it. Then I vaguely remembered him asking me "where does this go?" after we had got all the bags in from the car. I wasn't quite ready for putting away yet (cup of tea needed) and was a bit offhand, saying I wasn't sure yet, I might have to tidy up the cupboards first. But then, what was he waving when he asked this? Was it a small box of something? Tea, perhaps? And what would he have done with it? I looked in the cupboard and there is was. Not on the right shelf, but the right cupboard. He's so helpful! I sometimes forget this. I just didn't expect him to have done the obvious thing and put it away! Thankfully he wasn't put off by my non-cooperation in his helpfulness: he did it anyway.
He had also been very keen to get into the trolly and put things on the check-out. Earlier on, when I was hanging the washing out he was suddenly there by my side, handing me garments, one by one, saying "I can't reach" but I said it was very helpful to me not to have to bend down to pick each thing up. The other children don't do this. Why not? Freddie is much better at putting his toys away, too, and anyting that needs putting away. He doesn't do it because he's been asked; he does it because it needs doing. Well, interestingly, Freddie is the the only one of my children not to have been to nursery or kindergarten, or even toddler groups, well, hardly. I don't know if he just has a tidy personality, or just naturally does what needs doing as he has never been subjected to any formalllised training of any sort, so has to use his own common sense, or an intuitive imitation of what he sees others doing.
I was just about to call this "my little helper" or something, but that suddenly seems so patronising and belittling. he's not helping me, he's just getting on with it. You often hear of smalll children wanting to "help" around the home, but I've not come across, or noticed this to such an extent before. Maybe that's because the others weren't actually with me all the time at this age, so I missed out, or I wasn't so in tune with them.