"I Painted My Toes Again"

We have done quite a few renovations around the house this month and Scotty has been a most enthusiastic helper. Whatever project I come up with, he is more than willing to help. No job is too small or too insignificant for him. He wants to help with them all.

For example, I was changing light bulbs and he insisted on helping, so I had to lift him up to the ceiling and let him screw and unscrew several bulbs. It was also his job to operate the light switch for our quality-control tests that followed each replacement. When I took down the old ceiling fan in the kitchen, he dutifully carried each piece of the fan to the garbage bin outside. You tell he was having a fabulous time -- being helpful.

Any time I pulled out a tool I heard: "Can I try that?"
This got complicated for some jobs. At one point, I found myself standing with one foot on a chair, one foot on the kitchen table and Scott sitting on my raised knee, pulling the trigger on the drill so that we could drill a hole in the ceiling. I used one hand to keep him steady on my knee and the other to hold the drill. Essentially, I had my own 40-pound automatic trigger -- this is a convenience that I think will sweep the construction trade.

One of the best jobs was when we repainted the side porch to its original dark brown -- the trim colour of choice for houses built in the 1970s. It is technically a stain, but it sure looks like paint, so we will call it painting. I used the roller and Scott had the brush. His job was to slather the porch planks with paint and my job was to do the rails and trim, stepping in occasionally to "smooth out" his work on the planks with my roller. He was fairly jealous of his territory, and didn't want me sticking my nose in his business and breaking his concentration. We were both working in our bare feet, and several times I heard him say, "Oops! I painted my toes again!"

At one point, when we were maybe 2/3 finished, he ran off with excitement and said, "We should show mom!" He appeared a minute or two later with R, who gave her approval of the job so far. And then when it was all over, he told me that we needed to go paint some stuff. He didn't really care what it was -- he just knew he was a painting machine and he was on a roll.



One day I am going to have twist his arm to get him to do chores around the house. I guess I should take him up on his offer now and put him back to work.