Ah, the payoff is sweet

The parenting road can be rocky and long at times.

#1 made some of the hard times pay off today. It was beautiful sunny day. The lawn needed to be mowed. He jumped on the riding mower and started mowing. Yes, one tire was lower than the other and the lawn is striped. Yes, the lawn is cut short for the first cut of the season. But he did it himself, with no prompting.

Then.....

He started on the back. He was mowing Blueberry Hill and ran over a piece of webbing. It wrapped around the blades and the mower quit. He came in. He told his dad what happened. His dad moaned that he didn't have half a day to fix the mower. I calmly looked at my sweetie and said, "He messed it up. He should fix it." DH agreed and went and got the manual. DH showed #1 how to read the manual and said, "Put away the tools." He walked up to his office. #1 got the tools, read the manual, asked for help when he needed it, fixed the lawn mower all by himself , put away the tools and started mowing the rest of the lawn.

His confidence soared. I am so very proud of him.

I am sure this is the first of many times that boy will be fixing something.