It’s Tuesday – and time for 2-for-Tuesday – pick a topic and go with it.
Care to play along? On Tuesdays, pick a topic and segue into it!
On Sunday, as I putted around the yard, I noticed a large amount of water on top of the pool cover. All that snow melt and recent rains amounted to a lot of water – the amount of water that ducks just love to make their Spring home. The amount of water that starts to pull on the pool cover and create issues for the structure. ~Sigh~.
Chastising myself for not noticing sooner, I hooked up my little water pump and watched the water trickle through the garden hose and out onto the back lawn. I knew that, at this rate, it was going to take a long, long time to make any headway. And I knew about rain in the forecast. Geez.
Yesterday morning, fretting about the water, I mentioned it to oldest boy who promptly offered to check his inventory of tools and supplies to see what he could come up with. He promised to call me later and I went on my merry way and forgot about it. Yep, I stopped at the Hardware store and bought a new, bigger pump and as I pulled into the garage, there he was, big smiles, pulling in, too. He had a heavy-duty power-pump ready to go. He labored a while and got the contraption working and the water level soon dropped dramatically. Sorry ducks, no spa for you this year!
Walking with me to the house he offered tips on monitoring the situation all while asking what’s in the fridge these days anyways? After warming up some stew, he chatted happily with Dad and little brother and it was in that moment that I learned another lesson:
Refusing help when you need it is refusing someone the opportunity to be helpful.
We’ve helped him a lot. I guess it hadn’t occurred to me to let him help me.
Later, I’d left the TV on and gone off to put away some laundry. When I came back, youngest boy told me, in an outraged voice, that he couldn’t believe what was being shown on TLC. TLC is an abbreviation for The Learning Channel and that’s a channel I often watch. But he didn’t know that. He went on to tell me that he had walked through the living room and a show was focused on domestic abuse. Why the outrage? Above and beyond the programming – this is a boy who grew up believing the only possible thing TLC could stand for is: tender-loving-care. I smiled big, hugged him good night and gave thanks for getting two things just right.
Yes! Google.images.com
Are you able to let others help you? Does that include your children? Were the men in your life allowed to be tender or only tough?
