So for my proud parent moment for the week:

The Monster’s birthday party is next weekend, so we’ve been slowly going through cleaning up the house.  We’ve not yet tackled the family room because the Monster and his brother constantly empty out the bins of toys against the back wall.  (Well, that’s more R (the baby) than the Monster of late.)

Usually, I’m the one who tackles the task, since I spent more time down there than the wife does.  (I hide there when I’m working from home, and I’m usually down there in the mornings on weekends since I tend to take the kids in there when they wake up due to it being partially soundproofed.)  Because it’s obviously going to get made a mess again before Sunday, I’ve just not worried about it since R is going to just throw everything all over again.

So, R’s napping this morning, and the Monster’s just chilling on the floor over by the toy bins instead of watching the Sesame Street episode he’d asked for.  I just was checking WordPress to catch up on the blogs I follow when I realized I could hear him doing something over where I couldn’t see behind the couch.  Like all parents, there’s that “radar” that something’s obviously amiss, and I moved over to check on what he was doing.

The Monster was cleaning up the toys.

I mean, actually cleaning up the toys in an organized fashion (as opposed to in the living room, where everything goes helter-skelter into the toy box).  He was sorting things into individual bins according to type, and working away at the mass of toys to get himself some room to play with Mr. Potato Head.  I asked if he wanted some help, and he looked up at me, made eye contact and said yes.

Now, while it only lasted about five to ten minutes, the floor’s now mostly cleared and he did clean up Mr. Potato Head after he was done playing… which is a huge leap forward for him.  Whether it’s going to last is anyone’s guess…

This, of course, follows on yesterday at the wife’s Mommies’ Group picnic, where he was quite happy to play a high-five triangle game with me and R, so.  It’s a very, very nice change.