I posted recently about how much Veronika enjoys being my mimic with chores these days. One fantastic option that involves water play, mimicry, the joy of banging items together, and so much more, is simply to copy you with dishes.

Any little toy dishes or tea set would work fine for this game (or even unbreakable pieces from your kids’ cutlery and Tupperware drawer). But Veronika has a little dish set complete with a drying rack that helped her be even more like mommy!

I filled a shallow bin with water and added a squirt of soap; use tear-free baby wash instead of real dish soap. First, I showed her how to scrub the dishes.

She loved reaching her hands in and splashing, and adding the dishes to swish them around.

Utensils were especially fun, especially for pretending they were rhythm sticks to tap together.

Once she tired of that, I showed her how to towel things dry with a cloth, another great opportunity for mimicry. She loved the cloth and played with it for quite some time on the floor.

And believe it or not, there as no mess, since I had the whole game set up on a beach towel that went right into the laundry.

So perhaps this is the perfect activity while you clean up for real after cooking baby a recipe.