I haven't time for a long post this morning, so here's the story I alluded to yesterday.
There is one upside to allowing several months to elapse between visits with the grandchildren: the thrill of realizing how much they have grown in the interim. During my recent visit, all three of the young Daleys surprised me. This is Jonathan's story.
The assignment: clean up the boys' bedroom, which is also the playroom, especially the craft area. Crafts are probably second only to Legos as a Daley favorite activity, and papers, beads, pipe cleaners, stones, cereal boxes, paper plates, and other supplies were spread wide, intermingled with precious "I can't possibly throw that away" creations. After a psychologically draining couple of hours, the job was done, but my favorite part came at the beginning.
Jonathan explained that the reason papers were piled up on the craft table was that their plastic file pockets had fallen off the wall. I suggested he go ask Daddy to put them back up.
"No," Jonathan replied. "I'll take care of it."
He clattered down the stairs from the attic to the basement, and returned bearing the electric drill and a box of bits. After selecting the correct bit, and affixing it to the drill, he proceded to drill two holes, insert two screws, and hang the file pockets once more.
Jonathan did accept a small amount of help, in the form of (1) allowing Mom to provide two new screws when he discovered that his own stash did not have the right kind, (2) allowing Grandma to hold the file pocket up while he marked the location for drilling the second hole, and (3) bowing to a reminder that the job is not complete until the tools are returned to their proper locations. But truthfully, we were just hovering, and he could have managed it all on his own.
Not bad, I say, for a guy still a few months shy of his seventh birthday.
