Our helper monkey

You know that episode of the Simpsons where Homer gets a "helper monkey" that feeds him donuts? We're almost there.

Cooper's deep, deep desire to emulate adults, plus his love for pattern and sequential activities, has started to reach adorable levels of absurdity. We don't consciously try to teach him hardly anything, but he is watching everything so closely lately...

- If I or Matt are feeling lazy and don't put away our shoes, he'll put them away by the front door. In neat pairs. Keep in mind Matt's shoes are the size of Cooper's torso, so each one needs to be transported separately, and with both hands.

- While preparing for bath time, he carefully places all his clothing in the washing machine, then closes the door, then fiddles with the knobs, and then tries to pee on the rug (the baby toilet is strangely intimidating lately, so the rug is getting very frequent washings), and then asks to get in the bath. If he fails to pee on the rug, he tells me "No bee! All gone! Water!"

- When I am using the toilet and he thinks I am done, he carefully hands me the edge of the toilet paper roll, waits for me to "finish up," and then pulls up my pants for me.

- He puts his used water cup in the sink when he's done drinking, despite the fact that he cannot see the sink, nor reach it. He just kinda knows where it is, and lobs the cup in the right direction. His accuracy is pretty impressive, and he has about a 9 out of 10 cup-in-sink rate.

- If the downstairs baby gate is open, and I ask him to close it, he'll walk over, close it carefully, and then beam at me with evident pride at his helpfulness.

Now if I could just teach him to make waffles, tie my shoelaces, and walk the dog, we'd be all set.