Jenna Makes Breakfast

This morning, a holiday here in China, the family slept in. Randy and I awoke to hearing Jenna, who is an earlier riser, playing in her bed with one of her toys that has a small bell on it. She doesn't yet realize it, but it always alerts us to the fact that she is awake. As soon as she heard us up, she jumped out of bed ready for a new day! She wanted to play with her play dough first so we sat her at one of the small table trays in the living room to play while we began breakfast in the kitchen. Little did we know she had a plan of her own for breakfast! After a short while, she came in and wanted to set the table. Normally her older sisters take turns setting the table and sweeping up after-wards, but all of them were still asleep. We thought she just wanted to beat them to the job and took advantage of the opportunity for her to get to set the table herself. She set plates on the table, forks and such. It wasn't until a little while later when Randy went to get something from the refrigerator (next to the dining room), that he saw what she was really up to. She'd made breakfast with her play-dough!! She had 6 little balls of play-dough each on a plate. Hannah is not here right now but in the hospital or it normally would be 7 people. Not only did she have the exact number, but all were nearly the same size except one, hers! Obviously, she realized she didn't eat as much as the rest of us. That or it was a fluke! She's quite smart so I'd more believe that it is exactly the way she meant it to be! Imagine the rest of her sisters' surprise when we called them to breakfast a few minutes later! As each one came in, they had these dumb-founded looks on their faces wondering what was up with play-dough for breakfast! They thought we were trying to play a joke on them. As soon as we explained to them that Jenna set the table and made breakfast, they all played along thinking how cute it was that she'd done that. In the meantime, of course, she was hungry while waiting for the real breakfast to be done, so she had a snack making a mess in the floor. She promptly then came into the kitchen after the broom and dustpan. I followed her out of the kitchen to see what she was up to. Seeing the mess she'd made, I said "Sure, you can clean it up!" I believe in teaching the children to clean up after themselves when they make a mess and the younger they learn that, the better! How cute is that?!!