Rite of Passage

Something soooooo great happened to Jacob this weekend. He learned how to mow the lawn. Not that exciting, right? Well for an eight-year old boy who has never been been behind a mower before, you would have thought that he had just conquered the world.

Three years ago, when Lenny went to the Julian fire for two weeks, we hired a friend of ours who cuts lawns to cut ours while Lenny was gone. What was to be a one-time deal turned into three and a half years of having a gardener. I didn't mind so much because I knew it would get done regularly without taking time from Lenny. But, recently, watching Jacob grow into his own little manliness, we started to talk about Lenny show Jacob the ropes and let him and his dad do this together. Let Lenny and he share time, let Jacob learn from his dad and spend time together. Plus, the idea of having someone come and do our chores for us wasn't sitting so well with me lately. We wanted Jacob, and Sarah too, to contribute to our house in this way.

And God would have it. Our beloved friend Cliff told us that he was retiring and would no longer be cutting our lawn. Great timing. Lenny and I just had this conversation. Wow, God knows how to confirm, doesn't he?

So this Saturday, Lenny took Jacob out to the backyard and showed him how it was done. He showed him all the parts, how they work, how to dump the grass, all of it. I missed most of it, but at one point, I looked out the back window and saw Jacob making the turn at the fence and come back. He was smiling. When he saw me watching him, HE LIT UP LIKE A 4TH OF JULY NIGHT SKY. He was beaming. He got to the edge of the grass, put the brake on, turned around, released the brake and did another sweep of the grass as if he had been doing it forever. He was soooo cool.

He talked about it all weekend. When he went to bed last night, he was talking about it. When he ate his breakfast this morning, he said that he had dreamt about it. After school, he told me the friends that he had told about it. A friend of ours came over and Jacob told him about it. He is so proud of himself. It is as if he became more of a man this weekend. This is the part of parenting that I love. Oh I love this. I love him and I love Lenny for being the best dad ever in the whole entire world. I love that he is the father of my kids.