Painting Helper

Luke is approaching 3 and because of that we are getting his big boy room ready. The first step in doing that is to get his room painted.

When I paint a room I like to do it by myself. I find the methodical quiet work very relaxing. When painting Alyce's room we hadn't moved in and I had the house to myself. For weeks now Alyce has been asking to help paint. Mom and I's response of "it's a Daddy job" has been falling on deaf ears.

This weekend I finally tackled his room and Alyce was ready to help. I started off cutting in the ceiling with Alyce sitting in the room with me. She was sitting under the desk because she didn't want to get paint on her head. What kind of messy painter does she think I am? As I neared the floor she started asking if she could help. I didn't have it in me to tell her no. I set up a drop cloth, gave a brief lesson, and let Alyce loose on the receptacles. I held her hand for the first one and needed to clean up her work when she was finished. But in all she did a pretty decent job. There was one paint splatter on the drop cloth from when she forgot to scrape the excess off her brush. Later on while Alyce was in quiet time I pulled her out to finish the last baseboard in the room. I wanted her to have one final chance behind a brush.
Alyce seemed pretty pleased with herself. I liked the bonding time. Even though I was kind of dreading painting with her in the room it turned out better than expected. The hard part in parenting is knowing what your kids are ready for. I didn't think Alyce had it in her. It turns out she did and then some.

New Wall

We are only 9 months into living in our new house and I'm already working on a new retaining wall. Like last time Alyce is helping me with this wall too. Now that she is five she is able to contribute but more importantly isn't getting in the way.

For most of the digging she wasn't present as there wasn't a lot for her to do and because swinging a pick is dangerous work. Once the rocks and stones started being put into place Alyce came out to help. While I was setting stones Alyce would fill up an old Country Crock margarine container aptly named the "Butter Bucket" with rocks and dump them either behind set rocks or further up the trench.  What she did in one bucket I could do in a single shovelful but being efficient wasn't what our time together was all about.

There was some learning going on too. To put the rocks in the bucket she used a little gardening shovel that was pointy on the end. Being an active construction site there was lots of stuff for her and I to trip on. So she and I had a little talk about how to safely walk with her shovel. The gist of the conversation was pointy end down and no running. She being a good listener did exactly as I asked of her and was very cautious anytime she moved with the shovel. The lesson must have stuck as about a week later she had scissors in the house and walked with them point down and didn't run.

There was some fun during the project too. I had music playing on my phone to help pass the time. It was classic rock with a pretty good beat. On a few occasions I looked over to Alyce and she was bobbing her head or dancing in place. Also when we were done with our wheelbarrow of rocks I would take her on a wheelbarrow ride back to the front of the house for another load. On the way she would play tour guide and tell me the name of everything we passed by.

At the end of the day as I was cleaning up rolling the wheelbarrow and tools back into the garage Alyce says to me "Dad, I had lots of fun working with you". That gave me a warm fuzzy inside.

Helping Sweep

A while ago I caught up with the family while they were at Gram's and Papa's house. Walking outside I saw Alyce sweeping off the deck. She was doing a decent job considering how over sized the broom was.

Helping Daddy Out: Part 4

This weekend I spent a lot of time working on my wall. I even took a few days off to take advantage of the prime weather.  While I am out working Alyce likes to come out and help as documented; this time weekend was no different.

Yesterday Alyce helped me by cleaning off the tops of the bricks to make sure the new ones I was putting down sat correctly.  To do this she wanted to wear some gloves because I was wearing gloves to set the stones.  I didn't know Alyce had hands that big.

After cleaning the blocks she wanted to use my paint brush to paint the bricks.  Instead of her getting my brush wet I directed Alyce to her paint brushes and water "paint".  Alyce flexed her creativity and painted the  blocks with her own custom designs.

After painting, Alyce wanted to help me set a few blocks.  One thing I love about Alyce and kids in general is how well they can emulate what they see.  In the picture below Alyce is using the hammer to bang on a piece of wood that I've been using to protect the stone's finish from the hammer's impact.  What is interesting was that the day this picture was taken I didn't need to use the wood as protection; she got into the pile of of tools, grabbed the wood, put it in place, and used the hammer on it.  It pleases me to know that Alyce thinks highly enough of me to emulate my actions.

Today Alyce helped me spread some dirt using those over sized gloves again.   She also helped me pre place some U Channel gutters for installation tomorrow.

With all that I have been doing on this project Alyce must have thought that I'd be thirsty.  She reached into the wheelbarrow where I've been keeping my tools and some of my trash and pulled out an empty bottle of Yoohoo the chocolaty drink, brought it over to me, and said "daddy need some chocolate milk".  I love my little girl.

Rock Pile

Yesterday I was moving some rock to the side of our house as part of my retaining wall project.  Alyce, naturally was very interested in what I was doing and wanted to help out.  She went into the garage, grabbed her toy wheelbarrow, loaded some rocks into it, ran it up to the pile, and dumped it out.  She moved about % 0.01 of the total volume of rock but I appreciated her effort and willingness to help.

Alyce's attention was quickly diverted when the kids Rachel, Danielle, and Zack from down the street came up to play.  The three kids, all siblings, wanted to play with Alyce and on the rock pile.  Playing on the rock pile included climbing up, down, and dancing on top of it.  Nothing like a kid dance party to make you rush for the camera.

It is great that Alyce is getting old enough to have friends.  Just last week Rachel came up to our front door to ask if Alyce could come out and play.  I knew the day would come when kids would come calling asking our kids to come out and play.  I didn't think it would be before Alyce was three.

Helping Daddy Out: Part 3

Yesterday Alyce helped me out again.  I was finishing up a part of my big project and I needed to tamp some dirt down for a firm base.  I used my tamper a few times and put it back down for a bit.  Upon picking it up a second time I noticed the handle was a bit loose and the end of the tamper fall off!  Alyce immediately knew something was out of place and came over to help me.  She said "daddy fix it" then proceeded to grab a roll of masking tape and held it up to me.  I asked her if she could fix it for me.  She took the bottom of the tamper and proceed to wrap tape around the end.  Once her efforts were finished I was left with a big ball of tape at the end of my tamper.  I love that little girl and all that she does to help me out.

Helping Daddy Out

This weekend I started working on a retaining wall in the backyard.  This required me to dig up the backyard.  Naturally Alyce was interested in what I was doing.  After I was finished using some tools Alyce wanted to give them a try herself.

While Alyce didn't drive the stake into the ground any deeper it was totally cute seeing her use my mallet.  In addition to her wanting to help me with my tools she had lots of questions for me well more like stating the obvious.  She would say things like "daddy digging hole?", "big pile of dirt.", and "what doing daddy?".  She also would walk across all of the old stepping stones that I had removed.  I set them up to the side for her because it kept her attention and out of trouble.  As I was finishing up today Alyce had her sippy cup outside and on the ground near my pile of dirt.  It fell over and the straw fell into the dirt getting dirty.  Alyce looked on in disbelief then said "Oooh Nooo my cup".  It was cute.

Cooking Dinner With Dad

Last night Alyce helped me make grilled cheese sandwiches. Alyce helped butter and stack the bread while I grilled them. When I started the electric griddle it was time for Alyce to vacate the premises and well she was none to happy about that as she wanted to do everything with me. We redirected Alyce's attention by asking her to set the table. We gave her paper plates, silverware, empty cups, and napkins to put on the table. She did a great job as long as we pointed her towards the right places for each item.

A friend of mine at work told me that if you let your kids help make dinner they are more apt to eat it. I have to agree with him on that. Alyce ate all of her dinner, well most of it. She didn't eat the cut up tomatoes, but who is keeping score?