Kitchen as playground

Over the past few weeks, I can actually get stuff done in the kitchen even when Nikita is around. The drawers are an endless source of amusement for him. And he ALWAYS closes the door leading to the dining room, as if to get some privacy.

Yesterday, he took out a bunch of plastic containers from the cabinet. He's been doing this for a while, but yesterday he actually stacked them on top of each other, like lego blocks. He would even come to me to put the cover on containers so that he could build a higher stack.

As usual (recently, anyway), he cooked (as as he likes to say it, "mik") while I cooked. Cooking for him means swishing around some random food (nuts, cereal) in a small pot with a wooden spoon - or banging the lid closed. Yesterday, he brought in some plastic toys and some fruit with his cart.

Nikita also likes to clean around the house when I'm cleaning. That means that I have to give him a broom whenever I sweep. Yesterday, as I washed the dishes, however, he used the handle of the dustpan (the kind that allows you to keep standing) as a vacuum hose and made a "wooooo" sound as he searched the corners of the kitchen.

He likes to get close to the dirt (e.g., lie on the floor), which allowed him to find a pen underneath the radiator. Then I hsd to find him a piece of paper so that he could scribble the first part of his name ("Ni") on the paper and not the floor.