"Dad, that's a flat-head. You need a phillips," said my 11-year-old daughter Claudia yesterday as I was fixing a door latch, filling me with fatherly joy.
I didn't ever teach her the difference (though I would have been glad to). She and her older sister Madeline (14) figured it out for themselves over the weekend.
Maddie had been asking for a bedside table for quite a while, so on Friday I acquiesced and took her to Target (Source of All Good Things) and let her pick one out. Like most furniture from Target, it came in a box and required assembly. That's when she surprised me.
"Can I put it together?"
Okaaay. I lent her and Claudia my tools (which they had never shown any interest in before) and awaited requests for fatherly intervention. They didn't come.
The girls worked together (mirabile dictu!), ran into a few glitches (the table has a complicated drawer and cabinet assembly), solved them, finished the project, and carried it up to Maddie's room.
Hmmm. Maddie's desk was also way too small. Back to Target. The girls got back to work. Two hours later: a perfectly-assembled desk-hutch combination appeared.
Next: Claudia's old bedside table and Maddie's bookshelf needed painting. I gave them a couple of tips about priming and brushstrokes, and at the end of the day they were bringing their freshly-painted (and well-painted) furniture up to their rooms.
Well done, girls.
And, by the way: the shed needs painting. Interested in a summer job?
Sunday, July 10, 2005
My Girls
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1 comment:
My daughter is pretty over-the-top with tools. Her older brother generally isn't (he runs rings around her, computer-wise, but still talked her through installing a CDR over the phone and 800 miles). My moment of momminess was when I bought shelves (lots of shelves) when hubby and son were on a 10K mile cross-country graduation male-bonding experience. I went in to make tea; I came out and the shelves were being loaded with stuff. I drank tea and she finished all of them. Power tools, too, if an electric screwdriver counts. I was very misty-eyed in a "take her to work" sorta way. Daughters are wonderful!
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