Heather has been suggesting we allow Isaac the opportunity to wash our cars for a while. Given that he is an avowed neat freak – borderline OCD, if you ask me – who thoroughly enjoys tidying up and helping us clean the house, it wasn’t exactly the biggest leap of faith to believe he might enjoy a bit of bucket-and-sponge work.

That he fully embraced the idea – singing along happily as he worked – was therefore no shock. Equally unsurprising, the moment Toby went outside and realised what was going on, he immediately wanted a piece of his big brother’s action too. Our nearly-two-year old is currently obsessed with car logos – his repertoire now includes BMW (“daddy car”), Ford (“mummy car”), Citroen (“grandpa car”) and Mercedes (“say-dee”) – so his single-minded focus was on cleaning the badges on the front grilles and the middles of wheels.

I think it’s fair to say they had fun, although I wasn’t sure whether I should set this video to Rose Royce’s Car Wash – that’s where this post title comes from, in case you were wondering – or Whistle While You Work from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs:

I couldn’t be more proud. Child labour is, of course, an abhorrent thing. Unless it’s your kids, that is. In which case it is something to be actively encouraged.

The next step is to train them to rinse all the soapy suds off properly. And to engineer a way for them to clean the bonnet and roof. (I’m already mentally designing a crane-and-harness type arrangement.) Now if you’ll just excuse me, after all that fun I’m off to put my soap-streaked car through a proper car wash.