Wednesday, April 2, 2008

"My pleasure"

My parents closed on their new house a week ago today. In one week's time, they have taken the entire interior from circa 1976 to Barney Rubble. They have done almost every kind of demolition you can imagine. Yes, really. Layer upon layer of wallpaper, a 'rude' wall (as my mom said it), carpet, the previous owner's crud (don't get me started), rafters, texture off the ceiling, light fixtures, ancient tile set in concrete, kitchen cabinet/breakfast bar, old appliances...
A total do-over.
I have been spending as much time as I can over there helping out and letting my son, who can think of nothing better than building stuff, help out as well.
On Monday, my parents let him help knock out the offending wall they had planned to remove with a hammer. Boy was he on cloud 9!
I kept saying, "J. if you would rather go play out in the backyard, you can go right on ahead..."
Then he would swing his hammer again and say breathlessly, "No Momma, this is really my pleasure to help you get this wall out."
Ever so often, he would reiterate that this was his "pleasure."
He loves to build so much.
In fact, my parents hired a carpenter to help with a lot of the attic work because my dad is still recovering from a knee replacement. J. looked up at the carpenter and asked awestruck, "Is THIS what you do for a job?" I guess little J. couldn't think of any better job in the world than swingin' a hammer.
He's so into carpentry, in fact, he may be the only 4-year old child I have ever known who can not only identify a Philips head and flat head screwdriver, but also point out that the tool I had in my hand was NOT really an oscillating sander (as I mistakenly called it), but an orbital sander instead.
What a cutie pie tool guy!

2 comments:

La said...

My kids don't know sanders (I don't know sanders for that matter) but they most definitely know screw drivers. They've had way too many toys that required batteries to not know which screwdriver is which. =)

My pleasure. That's so way stinkin' cute! It would be MY pleasure to squeeze that little guy!

Camezi said...

My boys are very much into building. I'm a little sad that their daddy is so not wired that way. It would be really cool if he could teach them stuff about building and fixin' things. Oh, well, he can teach them music and computers. M has said that he wanted to build stuff since he was 3. At 10, he says he wants to study robotic engineering.