Naturally, He's a Whiz Kid

It was one of those rare Saturday mornings when Mom was away from the home, leaving Lukas and Daddy alone for some male bonding time. Since it WAS still morning, the boy and I opted to pass on cracking open PBR's in the garage while listening to heavy metal riffs, and reminiscing about past glory days. Perhaps another time (Er...yes, at least 20 years hence Mommy).

Instead our plan was to attend a scheduled, and paid-for, morning Daddy and Me soccer class. However, being a one car family now, and with neither of us getting our act together enough to get out the door in time to catch the bus which would get us to the event on time, we had to settle for a hastily devised Plan B.

This plan, which I must say was brilliantly conceived, had me, in essence, killing two birds with just one stone. I decided we would have a Backyard Adventure! And in this adventure I would have my 2 1/2 year old little guy 'help' me as I checked a few Honey Do's off of my standing list.

This plan, to my surprise, worked out amazingly well! Lukas was thrilled to grab his shovel and dig up rose bushes, dig out the sand box, and shovel dirty bark into the yard waste container. We kept at it for nearly two hours, all on a soggy Seattle Saturday morning. Several puddles were also tested for splashability. He even crawled into the near full wheel barrow to examine how it was packing down since we needed room for additional sand.

As you may have surmised from the previous paragraph, it was not too long before Lukas was a mucky mess of a child. There were no worries though, as he was definitely having a blast helping out daddy with all the chores. Has anyone caught on the the delimma I was destined to face at some point during these 2 hours in the back yard? Has anyone? Bueller?

At about the one and a half hour mark when Lukas indicated that he had to go potty. Unfortunately by this time he was already a dirty, soggy little mess and I really didn't feel like tracking that inside the house.

It was then that I realized that since it was, as I mentioned, a male bonding morning, it was the perfect opportunity for Lukas to be introduced to a distinctly male rite of passage. His first nature whiz!

I told him we were going to pee outside and pulled down his pants. "That's silly!" He exclaimed and he giggled wildly. "We are going to pee outside like the birds?" "Yes buddy, you are. It's o.k. once in a while."

"Just don't mention it to Mommy when she comes back."

So still sporting a big smile, he watered the grass. And with that Lukas took another step, albeit a small one, towards becoming a man. And oddly enough, I felt another small surge of pride.