Give it to me straight, kid

I decided to tackle more than one load of laundry today. This usually means I turn all of the dirty laundry baskets topsy-turvy, and clothes is then strewn everywhere.

Fast-forward to this evening.

Oh, one other important note: we keep the children's individual dirty laundry baskets in the kids' bathroom.

Okay, back to this evening. LittleMan is coming out of the kids' bathroom shower. I help to towel him dry. In the middle of my mothering and happy thoughts, LittleMan busts out with this:

LittleMan: Mom? I think you need to clean this place up.

Me: [I look around, and the kids' dirty laundry is all over the bathroom floor. I laugh aloud!]

LittleMan: It is a diSASter.

Me: [Smiling] Honey, you know a better way to say something like that would be to say, 'Mom? Can I help clean this up?'

LittleMan: [Thinking about that.]

Me: Or, you could just start cleaning it up yourself. That would really help me out.

LittleMan: But, I would be afraid that you would get mad at me.

Me: [Laughing] That's true.

Unfortunately, LittleMan was right on several accounts. Yes, the bathroom was a HUGE disaster. Yes, I really should clean that up. And, yes, I probably would have gotten mad at him if he had tried to clean up the dirty laundry.

Why, you might ask?

Because what child cleans up DIRTY LAUNDRY?! I would have naturally assumed that he was just messing with the laundry pile in order to make a bigger mess, if that's possible. So, really, I think LittleMan has pointed out several weaknesses in my character.

I think I've grown some...

... or I'll just put the child to work more often to make certain he doesn't say stuff like that again.