"Shoot" Mama!!

My 18 month old stood at the top of the steps yelling this phrase this afternoon.  I thought to myself "huh....shoot mama?!?! What in the world is he talking about?  I normally don't use the word "shoot" and we haven't really used our Nerf guns lately...shoot mama?!?!

He beckoned me with quickly flapping fingers followed by a command "here, Mama" with the obvious desire for me to follow him.



So I followed the bare-footed boy holding socks in his hand up to our 2nd floor and into our bathroom.  He pulled open our drawer to our laundry chute....followed by a "Chute mama!!" AHA!  It all makes sense now...





And so we commenced with some exploration of what happens to clothes in the laundry chute.  Off were his cute little socks.  Down the "chute" they went. 

"Where did they go?" I asked.  Off we went...in search of the socks that had been eaten by our laundry chute.  I directed Caleb down stairs, down the hall, to our laundry and mud-room and the ending place of our laundry chute.  We made a big deal of opening the door to find the socks.  TA-DA!! They were there. 




And that is how the "chute mama" game began.  And yes, that is chocolate on his face.  We had just gotten done making puppy chow for Awanas and all the kids had licked the bowl and I had not gotten around to wiping faces. 

For a good 20 minutes I followed Caleb up the steps, watched him put his socks into the chute, and then down the steps we would go to locate where the socks had ended up. 






Oh....what JOY an 18 month old has in the simplest of explorations.  My 6 year old and 4 year old just smiled at his antics and went back to what they were doing but he LOVED exploring the workings of our laundry chute.  When my other two were Caleb's age and I don't know if I would have paused and recognized this amazing love of exploration as easily....I felt like I was always plowing forward when they were at this age...never really stopping and enjoying the step they were on at that exact moment. Never taking the time to follow them up and down the stairs and open up a laundry chute again and again and TA DAH the socks are there again!!   Being a mom has really taught me the value of pausing and enjoying your children when they are discovering something for the very first time. 

 

 

 

Feel very blessed to have shared this special exploration time with my youngest today.