Measure Twice...Cut Once

I love being a Mom. My little guy brings me more joy than I could ever have imagined. It is funny how this little person who was born 8 yrs after my father passed away and 7 years to the day that my mother passed away, can remind me so much of them.

My father was a tinkerer. I am not sure if that is really a word or not, but basically it means he liked to tinker around with things. Check them out, find out what made them work. This also made him quite the little handy man. Dad was proud of the fact that he changed his own oil, replaced his own fuel pumps, and everything else under the hood of a car. (Don't worry Dad - I won't tell them all about the bucket on the porch that held all the "extra" parts that the car really didn't need to work after all.) He mostly did it out of necessity, but even if we had the extra money, I am not sure he would have wanted to pay someone else to do something that he could do himself anyway. Growing up with a tinkerer meant that I heard sayings such as "Measure twice, cut once" lots of times. He even had my Mom saying it when she would work on crafts with us or when she made curtains.

Recently, my son started watching Handy Manny and Bob the Builder, and he now thinks that he can build anything! He grabs all of his tools (he recently got a huge kit made by Home Depot of kids toys for Christmas from our neighbors and dear friends) and he tries to stick them in the side of his pants, or in most cases, the sides of his underwear, and take off to fix everything in the house, and then of course, to "Build Mommy a Big House." The other day, I heard him say something that made me stop in my tracks and smile. He was holding up his toy tape measure and I heard those familiar words, "Measure twice, cut once." It literally warmed my heart. This little boy's voice flooded me with warm memories of loving parents and a wonderful childhood. He may have learned these words from his cartoon, but in that moment when I heard him say it, I could almost picture him tinkering around with my Dad and working on a craft with my Mom.

Thank you Handy Manny and Bob the Builder for making me smile.