I’ve been making Liam’s new dog a pee-box for the terrace along the lines of this. (BTW, have we mentioned yet that Liam is getting a puppy?) Liam has a huge amount of curiosity in what I am doing with the hacksaw, drill and so on, cutting the wood and sheet-metal and putting the pieces together. He had to stand well back for most of it but he was able to help with painting on the polyurethane of the base piece.
Inspired by Liam’s interest and confidence around the tools, Deb brought out a book she bought me when Liam was a baby ’50 Dangerous Things’. After reading through the items Liam was most excited about ‘Hammering a Nail’, ‘Light something on Fire with a Magnifying Glass’ and ‘Play with Fire’ and I told him we could do ‘Hammering a Nail’ tomorrow which he is super-excited about.
After a terrible night sleep (Liam woke up in the middle of the night with a fever and vomiting) I was woken by a ‘whack whack whack whack’ on my arm by a sprightly Liam, saying ‘Daddy, Lets hammer a nail!’. And he meant right then. After putting him off 1/2 an hour to get up, make coffee and get the tools ready, that was exactly what we did! His co-ordination was better than I expected (I used pre-drilled holes for the nails) so we’ll move on to him holding the nail next, once I buy some smaller flat-topped nails.
Liam followed instructions well, had a nice sense of achievement but now hammering is passe.. he wants to go out to immediately try something new. ‘Lets go to the store to get a magnifying glass Daddy!’.
