My Little "Helper"

CONFESSION CORNER: I've been feeling a bit guilty lately about all of the time Garrett spends watching TV and movies. I've also been noticing lots of projects that need to be finished at our house that I've been meaning to do since we moved in.

THE PERFECT SOLUTION: While Abby was napping this afternoon, I took Garrett down to the basement with me and told him we were going to "work." He found his hammer and pounded on boards while I painted our barstools. Life is good: I'm getting a much-needed project done and Garrett isn't watching TV.

My mom gave us some hand-me-down, hand-me-down barstools when we moved in. (As in somebody used them and gave them to her and she used them and gave them to us. Did you follow that?) I've been meaning to paint them black for a long time and decided today was the day!!! I was almost done painting and had them lined up and drying while I was touching up a few spots. I looked up just in time to see my little "helper" take a scoopful of sawdust and dump it on one of the so-freshly-painted-that-the-paint-is-still-wet stools. AAAHHHH!!!

I was mad. Really mad. I tried to remind myself of a few things:

1. The stools are just a "thing." Garrett is a "person." People are always more important than things.
2. The stools were given to me. I gave birth to Garrett. (Hence, he should mean more to me than the stools.)
3. The stools were free. We paid a lot of money to get Garrett here and continue to pay a lot of money to take care of him. (Clothes, shoes, food, diapers, Disney movies--they all really add up. However, if you read my previous post you will see that we only have to buy diapers for Garrett until March, so that is good.)

Garrett can be a bit mischievous at times (or all the time), but I could tell he felt bad and I'm not sure he realized when he did it that dumping sawdust on a freshly painted barstool was going to be a problem. So I got over it and talked to him about it and we moved on. I decided I was really grateful he just got the sawdust on one stool instead of all four. One is much easier to fix than four!

Tomorrow we will be going to town and buying two things:

1. Another can or two of paint so I can re-paint the stool after I have sanded the sawdust off.
2. A new Disney movie to keep Garrett occupied while I do this.

Maybe watching TV isn't such a bad thing after all...