Father Daughter Baseball

Last night Alyce and I had a father daughter moment. We played baseball together. I guess it wasn't really baseball as we were just throwing the ball to each other and swinging at it with the bat. I did get to show Alyce how to hold a bat and the path the bat is supposed to take when swinging. Surprisingly Alyce bats left handed and throws right. Between my poor pitching and her mediocre swings we didn't have a lot of success driving the ball over the fence but we did have fun. Alyce did knock a ball pretty good; right into my head. The ball and bat were so squishy I barely felt anything. Luke was out with us but wasn't interested in swinging the bat. However, he sure wanted to throw the ball around. Mom gave him one of his own but on occasion he'd steal the ball from us.

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.

Building a Train

Every few weeks throughout the year Lowe's has a workshop for kids where they get to build something. School buses and snowmen are projects I've heard about in the past. A few weeks ago we heard from our friends Josh and Tammy that a three part train set of workshops was coming up. I thought it would be a cool father daughter project for the holidays; playing with Gideon would also be a nice bonus.
This morning Alyce and I made the first section of train, the caboose. Having never done this I didn't quite know what to expect. The recommended ages for the workshop was 1st through 3rd grade so I thought it might be a bit much for her. If I hadn't been there then it definitely would have been but working together we managed. All of the parts were pre drilled so the nails went in pretty easy. I got each nail started, then Alyce took her turn, and I would finish the nail off. Alyce's hammering skills leave much to be desired but coming from a four year I was impressed.
Towards the end Alyce was losing interest that was until we brought the stickers out. The kit included two sets of stickers, holiday and normal. The holiday stickers had Christmas colors and greenery for decoration. The normal was more like a standard caboose. Surprisingly Alyce chose the normal stickers over the holiday ones. I think the horse sticker for the window won her over. I would have preferred the caboose be left plain as the natural wood gave it that old time feel. Regardless the final product turned out great. Lowe's design was just the right amount of time and complexity. Anymore of either and the fun factor would have declined. We are looking forward to next weekend where we get to make the middle section of our three car train.