You're making dinner, trying to get everything on the table in time, and your little one's, been brought into the kitchen by the wonderful aromas you're creating, just won't get out from underfoot...they're starving!!!Sound familiar?
Most time I hand out little nibbles to these food crazed monsters, but by the time dinner rolls around, they aren't really hungry anymore. And when you work really hard on a meal, you just want to see everyone enjoy it, right?
Well, that's the inherited trait from my mother's Italian side of the family anyway...
If there is some way they can help with the cooking, that is always a welcomed treat. But sometimes there aren't many small jobs for small hands. So, instead of shooing them away - unsuccessfully - over and over again, I've come up with another plan. And it's something that has to get done, too, so it doubles as a time saver trick.
Instead of doing it all myself, I employ my three year old to fill up our kitchen compost bin with all the scraps that I've created while cooking. Then as a team, my five and three year old take it out back to our compost pile and deposit the soon-to-be black gold on top.
If they are in the mood to turn the pile...wow...great! Thanks kids! ;) But if not, no biggie. The task of taking kitchen scraps out to the compost pile not only takes outside, they also learn how to work as a team, and it helps to instill the truth that just because we're not eating certain parts of the veggies and fruit, that doesn't necessarily make them trash.
Taught to them young and kept as part of their daily lives, kids will see the benefits of living green first hand. Therefore they will be more apt to incorporate them later on into their own life as they grow older.
That's really good because, as we all know, it's our job to raise them greenies :)
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