Taking Initiative

At what point do little boys learn about working hard and taking initiative? If asked this question a couple weeks ago I (Jason) would have guessed it would happen in the teenage years. And that it would be an uphill battle to teach a boy such skills. But I watched Tyson do the most amazing thing the other day that it has inspired me to come out of blog hibernation and share it with you.

So, it all started when Tyson and Jada convinced me to take them into the backyard to play. As we walked down the stairs into the grass, Jada began sniffing her favorite spots, Tyson wandered off babbling and singing, and I looked intently for the tennis ball to play fetch with Jada. I was lost in my own adventure of raking through leaves and avoiding Jada's "land mines" in search of the small, greenish Wilson brand tennis ball. At one moment I had looked up and caught a glimpse of Tyson walking with a pine cone in hand, still babbling as he went.

Finally, after a couple minutes I found my treasure and began coaxing Jada to come play with me. I looked around for Tyson to make sure he wasn't getting in to troubles. I found him walking towards the concrete slab, where our garbage, yard debris, and recycle receptacles sit. In his hands were a couple more pine cones. I found this odd, so I followed. He walked over to the concrete slab and put them on the ground next to the other pine cone I had seen him carrying earlier. He was making a pile to put in the yard debris container. Granted, he has seen me do this a couple of times. But, with no prompting at all, he had decided to do some "yard work". Of course I had to take advantage of the much needed help in the yard, so I joined him picking up cones for 5-10 more minutes. What a boy!