My husband, Bill, has always been good at fixing things. Over the five decades of our marriage, he has rarely called for someone to fix something he is able to fix himself. That includes most plumbing repairs, even though he always reminds me, as he gathers up his plumbing tools, that he hates plumbing.
Even as a young child, he was inquisitive and precocious, often taking things apart and constructing useful items from found objects. Bill's mother shared that he was a hard one to raise because he couldn't sit still, and was always into things. Over the years, he has repaired and constructed a variety of things, always working on some project or another. I guess there's a good reason he decided to become an electronic engineer. Have I mentioned that Bill holds several patents that have been widely used in the Cable TV and Internet industries?
Both of our biological daughters have inherited their dad's ability to fix things around the house and work on significant home improvement projects with little assistance, but neither of them are as driven about it as Bill has been. However, at least one of our grandchildren is following closely in Grandpa Bill's footsteps.
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| Ari looked on proudly as Bill read the Christmas card he made for his Grandpa. |
Seven-year-old Ari has always been precocious and tenacious. He wasn't even a year old the first time he scaled the end of my kitchen cabinets and stood triumphantly on the counter. He spoke clearly, in complete sentences, at a very young age. He's been building intricate Lego projects, following the directions with little help, for a few years now. And recently, he's been collecting odds and ends that you and I would call "trash," because he might be able to use that junk to build something.
Just last week, Ari found this lightbulb in my yard and took it home, where he connected it to a battery and switch that Grandpa Bill had given him to use for his projects. It still worked! He snaked the wire up the side of his raised bed so he can turn on his new light in the middle of the night; the light shines just enough so he can climb down from his bed safely without waking his brother, across the room.
His mom told me that Ari takes apart old, broken electronics almost daily, hooking up the individual parts and pieces to a battery to see which ones still work so he can make use of them in other applications. He loves using his found objects to construct working robots of various kinds, as well as other useful gadgets.
Last fall, Bill decided that he and Ari should rebuild an old go cart that someone had offered to sell him. Bill had enjoyed building a gravity powered go cart as a young child, but his mom, who was a school nurse, vetoed the gas powered go cart that he really wanted because she thought it was sure to cause injuries among the dozen or so boys who lived in their neighborhood.
Bill and Ari spent countless hours at the shop, adding new parts and safety features to their go cart, including a new seat and five-point harness. Even Bill's Mom would have been impressed.
Now, whenever Ari wants to take the go cart for a spin, he texts Grandpa on the kids' talk-and-text-only phone, and asks if Bill will bring the go cart over so he and his siblings can take turns driving it up and down their lane. Then, Bill loads the go cart onto his trailer and takes it out for an hour or two of fun.
A few days ago, Meagan brought some of the kids to my yard so they could move a pile of wood chips, leftover from a dead tree that had been removed a couple of weeks ago. They shoveled the wood chips into our ancient wheelbarrow and pushed it across the yard, where they dumped the chips under a pine tree that needed additional mulch. As they were working, someone noted that the wheelbarrow was a little off-balance, which put it in danger of dumping its load too soon. Immediately, Ari got down on his hands and knees to peer under the wheelbarrow. After taking a good look, he informed us that he could fix that.
His mother advised Ari that he would have to fix the wheelbarrow later, when we weren't using it.
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| After they helped empty the wheelbarrow, Ari gave his sister a ride back to the pile of remaining wood chips. |
Start children off on the way they should go,
and even when they are old they will not turn from it.
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