Free child labor begins!

This morning's activity consisted of trimming a tree in the backyard that spontaneously had a rather large branch come crackling down yesterday evening (a noise which was incredibly alarming and caused the dog to bark, which scared Preston and made him burst into tears, and left me standing in the kitchen holding a terrified baby and wondering, what the heck was that?!?.) A lovely sequence of events.
Nevertheless, I learned that Mommy armed with a handsaw and step stool= several hours of toddler entertainment/engagement/exercise (which is the magical toddler trio, you know.) Preston had a blast assisting me in dragging the tree branches around the back of the house and all the way to the end of the driveway (where hopefully city pick-up is due any day...) Incidentally, it was a walnut tree, so there was the added chore of picking up walnuts that were scattered everywhere as well. This was also a glorious time. Preston declared several times "I a hard worker." In fact, he had it on repeat for a while, even throwing in "really hard worker" every once in a while.
During this escapade, several neighbors driving by slowed down to acknowledge what a handy little helper I had. Indeed. And he was out like a light for naptime afterwards, too. Win-Win!