My Genius Daughter........

So last night, I finally had some time since mid-November to work on my Etsy store. The Christmas gifts have been purchased. The house has been cleaned and only needs a quick 'once-over'. Our list of food to purchase for the two traditions celebrated in this house has been made and will be purchased on Monday.

And many of my soaps, which I thought would not be ready until January are hard and ready to use!

Which means I can take pictures.... something I really like doing. It's a skill I'm still working with, but can see the improvements I've made over the last couple of years.

So I put the kids in front of the tv (usually I'm turning the tv off and telling them find something else to do) and gave them a bowl of chocolate each. 'This will keep them occupied,' I think.

And I've got myself set up and begin to arrange soap, when I hear my daughter behind me, 'Are you taking pictures of things you're going to sell, Mamma?'

'Yes.......' I say. I now realize that this is not going to go as smoothly as I had planned.

'Oh can I please help? Please? Please? PLEASE?!?!?!?!?.......' she eagerly asks. The last 'please' reaches a volume and a pitch not acheieved even when she is desprately after a toy or some gum when we're doing our weekly shopping at the store.

I can tell she desprately wants this.

And I sigh...... this is not going as smoothly as I had planned.

'What do you want to do?' I ask.

'I want to take all the pictures!' she says.

And it's then I realize that I can break someone's heart, or I can go and do some laundry. I never get enough time to do laundry. So I give her the camera and tell her to have fun and leave to find smelly clothes.

'Can I take pictures of two soaps at once?' she asks.

'You can take pictures of as many soaps as you want,' I answer from the other room.

'Can I take pictures of all the soaps together?' she yells to me as I move further into the house.

'You can take any kind of pictures with the soap - just use your imagination!' I yell back to her. I'm upstairs now.

'Okay!' she answers, in her optimistic 5-year-old voice.

And these are some of the pictures she came up with. Some of them were out of focus, but most of them were suprisingly not. I must say, I'm pretty impressed.

She's pretty good! And not just because I'm her mother. She's trying different things, seeing how different shaped soaps fit together, or don't fit together.

And I think that after Christmas is finished, I'm going to find the United Nations regulations and the Norwegian laws regarding Child Labour. She might be of more use to me than being a cute face with intelligent comments.