Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

Today was the first real snow of the season. It has been snowing steadily since about 10 a.m. I am not a big fan of snow, especially when out driving in it. It is pretty to look at when you are comfortably ensconced in your nice, warm house, but going out in it is a completely different story. This is of course not the case where children are involved.

At the time, I didn't even realize that I was doing my one thing for the day when I did it. My 12-year-old son came home from school and immediately wanted to go outside and be in the snow. I told him that he could do just that after he took the dogs outside, which he did, and then he went out in the snow. At first it was a little irritating when he threw a couple of snowballs at the window, because my one dog is hyper-vigilant and will bark at a leaf rolling down the street if he thinks that it is a danger to his family. The snowballs were just to much.

A few minutes after I told him to knock it off, he came into the house and asked if he could use the snowblower, which he has never used before, to clear the driveway. At first, I didn't want to let him because that meant that I would have had to go down to the garage, show him how to operate it, and tell him a few other do's and don'ts. But, I stopped myself from being my impatient self and went down to the garage. He really didn't need much instruction on how to operate it. He had difficulty using the ripcord to start it, so we used the electric starter and off he went.

Periodically, I checked on him to see how he was doing. First time I checked, he was doing a great job on the driveway. The second time I checked on him, he was clearing the sidewalks up and down our side of the street. The third time I checked, he was clearing the neighbor's driveway.

After he came inside, I told him how proud I was of him for taking the initiative to clear the driveway and for doing such a good job. He told me that he did the neighbor's driveway just to be nice and the neighbor gave him $6 for it. He was proud of what he called his first paying job.

So, my one thing today was ignoring my impatience and letting my son take some initiative and responsibility. I definitely bettered my life, now that I potentially do not ever have to clear the driveway again and allowed my son to have a sense of pride and accomplishment.