Grandma’s helper came one morning when our daughter had to bring her twin babies to the Dr.. We volunteered to watch number two for her. I sometimes call my grand daughters number one and number two from the characters in The Cat In The Hat book.  That came about one night when they had just had their bath and had their footie pajamas on. They ran and ran around chasing each other and laughing hysterically.
Any way number two is a very intelligent 2 year old (yeah I know I might be biased) and has boundless energy and endless questions. In her mind she is helping us. And in fact she is but not in the way she thinks. She desires to help us, but also wants to do what she wants to do; two year olds are prone to think they are the center of the universe (and grandmas are prone to reinforce that misconception).
Our day started with a second breakfast, two year olds are always hungry, and you have to nourish grandma’s helper. Then it was on to the soap shop. I had lots of soap to wrap and I thought number two might be able to be grandma’s helper. I gave her the job of putting soap on the wrappers. She did quite a few of them and then it came to her that it would be much more fun to build a soap tower.  I was able to interest her in handing the labels to me but she was going faster then I could wrap. Next she thought “why should I wait for grammy to wrap the soap, I’ll just wrap it myselfâ€. She tried to wrap one bar and realized it was much harder than it looked and it was just not for her and decided to go shopping for soap instead.
I was able to continue wrapping while she happily moved soap from trays to baskets to boxes talking and asking questions the whole time. Soon her momma was back and number two was so happy to see her and the twins. Then they all hurried home to meet number one off the bus.
The soap shop is peaceful now, but we miss the smiles, laughter, hugs and endless questions of grandma’s helper.