On this date my 16yo got up on Saturday morning and started on his weekend chores, unprompted. He took the recycling outside and thought to himself, "Huh, the grass is pretty long and it's my turn to mow and it's only going to get warmer. I'd better do it now." He mowed the grass and put the mower away; he came back inside and went about his Saturday morning business. (He opted for the motorless mower, so this was a quiet undertaking. And our lawn is tiny, so it only took 20 minutes or so.)
I am now in my second decade of mothering teenagers and this is the first time one of them has ever said, unprompted, "You know what I think I'll do? Mow the grass, that's what." I was outside admiring the blooming bachelor's buttons when it dawned on me that the grass was mysteriously shorter than it had been and there were severed bits of it lying on the lawn. What could have happened? Was it, like, an alien crop circle except in a rectangle?
I scrunched up my face in puzzlement and turned to Pete. "Did you...mow?" "You noticed!" he said.
Tonight at dinner we were talking about all the years in which there was all that seemingly endless peeing on the floor. "Having kids sounds really hard," said Pete. "Is it worth it?" "Yes," I said, "a thousand times yes." And even though this is the fourth time I've watched it happen it's still the coolest thing to see: the way that the little tiny person who needed so much help grows into a teenager who wants to give back.
Recent Comments