I think the best way to teach children the basic skills of life is to have them work right along side you. I try to keep the girls next to me when I am cooking and cleaning. I haven’t been super great at that the last little while, but recently I had a great reminder.

I am very grateful to Dadzoo’s grandpa, he learned many basic skills from watching him. When things would break around the house grandpa would come to help fix them. From his grandpa Dadzoo learned the basics of machinery and construction. Dadzoo is a wonderful handyman, I don’t think there is anything he can’t do. He has fixed washing machines and dryers and my dishwasher more than once. He can do basic automotive repairs (he doesn’t like to work on cars and would rather pay someone else to do it, but I like the fact that he could if he wanted to) he can do electrical work and some pluming. He finished two rooms in our basement and had built me rabbit hutches, chicken coops and shutters for the house. If there is anything he doesn’t know how to do, he finds out and tackles it.

About a week ago Dadzoo’s car died on us. He couldn’t drive to work so he did a “work from home” day. The nice thing about that is in between projects and problems he can putter around the house and do odd jobs and such. My dishwasher had been having a slight problem so he needed to take the door apart to figure stuff out.

Baby Boy punk couldn’t stay away. The second the tool box was brought out he was right there investigating what was going on. Dadzoo was wonderful and patient, I really enjoyed watching Father and Son bond over a tool box!

When the investigation was over and Dadzoo went to put the door back together he gave Baby Boy punk a tool to “help” with. You can see that he got right to work on those screws, just like his Daddy.

He did notice really quickly that his tool wasn’t exactly the same as Dad’s.

And turned to the tool box to find the “proper” tool.

He came back with this: a screwdriver, just like his Dad was using. (Smart kid!)

Then promptly got to work helping his Dad screw in those screws.

These two handsome guys are my boys! We have Dadzoo (he is the big one) and Punk #5. This picture was taken on day 4 of our vacation we were taking a walk around Big Springs in Island Park.

Aren’t they cute, a father and his son, enjoying the beautiful world around them.

Punk #5 found an interesting hand hold…

“Hey Dad how far do these things go!”

(he seriously had his finger dug that far into Dadzoo’s ear!)