Now that I’m picking Mason up from school every day at 3:30pm, he and I have two and a half hours every day together before Susan and Morgan get home from work/school. Figuring out what to do with that time has been an interesting process. Our first week, we wasted the time. After school we’d rush home, he’d jump on either the Wii or the Xbox, and I’d jump on the computer. The second week, we decided to start going places. We went to a couple of different parks, on a few motorcycle and golf kart rides, and so on. That was a better use of our time, but I still felt like we weren’t making the best use of the time. My new goal for the past month has been to turn over a leaf and start getting more things done, so starting this week Mason and I have begun working on projects together.
Last week Susan complained that the kids’ books are out of control. We have books in the entertainment center, in a basket (that has things stacked on top of it so you can’t even open it), and under the coffee table. Over the weekend I came up with the idea of getting a bookshelf for the small alcove by the stairwell. Monday, on the way home from work, Mason and I stopped by the store and picked up some white shelves that would match that area of the house. We both worked on assembling the shelves; Mason helped with some of the hammering and screwing. Once they were finished we moved them into place and we spent the rest of our time collecting all the books in the living room and putting them on our new shelves. Boy was mommy surprised!
Tuesday, Mason and I fixed our fence. We’ve had two slats missing from one of the front panels for over a month now. Susan picked up the slats several weeks ago but I never got around to replacing them because they needed to be sawed down a bit to fit. Tuesday, I trimmed the boards down and then Mason held them in place while I screwed them into the fence. Another success!
I’m not going to put the boy to work every day; today I think we may just get a couple of Cokes and head over to one of the parks he enjoys playing in. I like to mix it up a bit. I hope he remembers doing these little projects together.
I think you’ll be surprised how much these projects and this time together will mean to him. Most of my childhood memories of my dad and me, together alone, involve me following him around his workshop and him explaining how a car engine worked. Nothing special, except to me. Keep up the good work, son!