My youngest is turning into

 My youngest is turning into a young man.  Last week we shaved off his first growing of a mustache.  Today he helped mow the yard for the first time.  My wife was originally campaigning against me to not have him help mow the yard because he's too young.  He's 13.  I started mowing the yard when I was 8.  He got a 5 year reprieve from how life was when I was a kid.

As my wife and I debated the issue with him being too young - I told her it was my job to turn him from a boy into a man.  Part of being a man is learning how to do manual labor that no one else wants to do.  It's doing something because it has to be - even when no one wants to do it. My job is to teach him a work ethic and the satisfaction of a job well done.

As always, the first attempt is pretty rough.  Figuring out how to control the mower, how to look at the grass and position the lawn mower properly and how to operate and control the tool.  He did good considering he's never done it before.

We ran out of gas between the front and back yard.  I took him and the gas can to the gas station.  There's a way to get to the gas station without going on the main road.  You can drive behind a strip center even though they tell you not to.  If the strip center has a road behind it that does to the gas station, does that mean the tenants and customers can't drive through either?  

On the way back I asked my boy if he wanted to drive.  He looked at me and said NO.  I was like why not?  Because I"m too young.  It's illegal.  I'm like dude - it's a parking lot.  You can drive on private property and I'll be here with you to make sure you don't hit anything.  He still wouldn't do it after about 5 minutes of trying to convince him......

Then we're on the way home and about to turn on to our street.  I ask if he wants to drive again.  He says no.  Then he goes - but I'll steer from here.  OK.  If we're going to do this in baby steps I'm not missing any of them.  So he steered the car from the passenger seat and had a fine time doing that.

I remember when I was a kid I didn't have a chance about mowing the yard and my Dad would let us kids drive the car sitting in his lap on birthdays.  We didn't drive in a parking lot.  We did it on the neighborhood streets.  He controlled the pedals and we steered.  I told my youngest about it and he goes Poppy did that?  Believe or not, he was cool like that.  Oh the memories.