This afternoon, in preparation for a small trip I'm taking with the boys, my brother and his teenage daughter, I suggested that the boys clean out the Suburban. Just as they started to moan about this unreasonable request, I added that they could then drive it down to the car wash. "By ourselves??" While one son has his operators license, we have severely limited his driving alone until he has more experience. Yes we are mean parents but we also remember being 16 years old.
So on this warm sunny spring day, they washed the car and returned the videos. One son walked in the house with a huge grin, experiencing the ecstasy of spring, and seemed surprised when I said, "So you had the radio on very loud and the windows open."
The other son came in and asked me for a saw so he could help an older neighbor cut up a tree that fell over in the windstorm several days ago. No, it was not the chain saw, but the pruning saw to remove the branches. He walked home whistling and asked if he could load the wood on our truck to take to our camp. I'm so proud of him and so glad some of the selfless service to others that my husband has modeled for years has stuck.
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