Three Year Old Assistant

A lot of people have asked me how I manage to get anything done on the house with John Henry around.  The truth is that he loves to help.  He's kind of like a Boarder Collie.  He needs something to do or he becomes destructive!

Today we cleaned the remaining wall paper paste off of the bathroom walls in preparation for painting them.  (aside: PLEASE never wall paper a bathroom.  It's a nightmare to remove!)

This job requires the following tools: A spray bottle, fabric softener, a nylon brush, lots and lots and lots of rags and a couple of old towels.

 Fill the spray bottle up with 4 parts HOT water and 1 part fabric softener.  I chose an eco friendly brand with a very light lavender smell, as I knew John Henry would be helping me and I am very sensitive to smells.  You are going to be in a room filled with this smell, so best to choose something that isn't going to make you miserable.

Give the spray bottle to the three year old assistant and let him go to town on the walls.  If he's anything like John Henry he will think this is the best thing that's ever happened in his entire life.

 It was also very convenient to have a very small helper to pick the little pieces of left over wall paper off of the walls in the very tight spaces.

 Follow him around and take pictures of him scrub the walls with the nylon brush, then rub the paste off with the rags that have been soaked in hot water.

MOM!  Get back to work!!!

 Oops!  Well, after an hour of doing this we were about 80% done with scrubbing off the paste and only had areas left that John Henry was too short to get to even if he was standing on the counter or the toilet.  We decided to call it a day.  I'll finish tomorrow while Link has the boys.  Then I can repair the sheet rock (the wall paper did a number on it) and paint at LONG LAST.  I'm very excited to get the paint on the walls.  I chose an unexpected color and I'm anxious to see if it's going to work or not.