"Can you take Sam?" She said.
Sam never liked me using the drill. Ever since we could remember, Sam found blenders and drills intimidating. They were too noisy.
Plus he would get in my way - disrupt my flow. I had a lot of furniture to put together so I can get back home and spend real time with the kids.
As I was finding a way to get out of this burden that was thrust upon me, I recalled another bloke who told me how he often gets his THREE kids to help him out in the yard.
"I can do this." So I told myself. I'll just have to find a way to keep Sam out of my way.
So I set up some toys and some cardboard that Sam would play with. And he got started with rolling a ping pong ball through the Ikea box tunnels. That lasted no more than 2 minutes.
"What you doing daddy?" and "I don't like the drill - it's too noisy!" were met with my
"Uh-uh!" and "Don't touch that!"
Eventually I realised I could not convince him to play with his toys. Sam wanted to play with what daddy was playing with.
Is it really possible to have the boy "help" me?
It took me some time to find out he was good at finding bits for me.
I'd ask him to get me a short screw, and then 5 more while I got the first one in. And then 8 dowels for the next step. What a champion! He was really useful. And then there were the nails. I'd set up some nails - tap then partially into place so they don't move and they're straight. And then he'd go back and hammer them in for me.
And the drill. I got him to press the button. He didn't like it at first, but I showed him how to make it turn both ways. And then showed him how to drive a screw in.
At age Three and Five-Sixths, Sam proved to be really useful. As useful as this new drill I got for my birthday. And Sam was not scared of drills anymore.
So that morning, we finished putting together a wardrobe (80% done from previous day), a bedside table, a study desk and chair.
I'm looking forward to retiring from house DIY and mowing at a ripe age of 40.
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