Whatever I Feel LikeGosh!

Aric has barely rested all weekend, but the kid has been in his glory. Our weekend plans got turned upside down when Rob got sent to Florida for work on Friday night. The original plan was for him and the boys to go to a shooting range Saturday morning followed by going to my parents’ house to do their lawn for them since they are out of town. Saturday night the boys had a birthday party sleep over to attend, too. Well, Aric didn’t want Rob being gone to keep him from doing any of the yard work. In fact, he wanted to go early and head to my parents’ on Friday night! He got quite pissed off at me when I told him we were not driving to Jersey after I got off work. I told him I was going to a meeting on Saturday morning and afterwards a friend was coming over so I could help her with setting up her Match.com profile - and once we were done, then we could go to Jersey. I called Rob to make sure he was okay with Aric using all the lawn tools by himself. Rob said that Aric does a better job than he does, and that he would be fine. This boy should have been born and raised on a farm, he just loves that kind of stuff.

Well, my friend was barely out the door when Aric had his bag packed, a blanket in the back of my car, Grace’s leash on and the nagging for the rest of us to hurry up began. By the time I got my food ready and my overnight bag packed, he had himself, the dog and his brother in the car, with the A/C already running just waiting for me to assume my position in the driver’s seat. When he found out I still wasn’t ready to go, he flipped out! Ha! Finally, we were on our way and Aric wasted no time getting the tractor out of the shed to get to work once we arrived. A few hours later, he had mowed, weed whacked and blew away all the debris on my parents’ yard and their next door neighbor’s as well. Poor kid had gone through 4 bottles of water and was sweating his ass off - it was 90-something degrees yesterday with high humidity. He didn’t complain, though.

After he took a shower, we were heading to the birthday sleep over - however Aric confided in me that he didn’t want to go because the kids would be older and he feared Connor would have them all gang up on him and he would be left out. The boys really do struggle when they are with a crowd, constantly fighting for the same friends and attention. I respected his wishes and told him he could come with me to my brother’s house. And wouldn’t you know it, when we got there, my brother asked Aric if he wanted to mow his front lawn. Aric immediately answered with, “Sure! I’ll do it for free!” :-) (He gets paid by us, my parents and my parents’ neighbor when he does the lawn.) It didn’t take him too long to finish the front, and we all came inside to say goodnight to my nieces. By the time Greg got downstairs from putting them in bed, we heard the tractor going again - Aric had started on the back yard on his own initiative. Greg was like, “Cool!” Heh. Aric mowed his entire back yard (it’s huge!) and then weed whacked for him, too. By this time, it was getting dark and he had to finish with Joseph holding a flashlight for him to see. Very cute stuff.

So now it’s 9:30 on Sunday morning and Aric is still sleeping, bless his heart. I know when he gets up, though, he’s got plans. He said he missed a couple of spots with the weed whacker here at my parents’ and then he wants to get our yard at home done. This boy will have spent his entire weekend working and loved every minute of it! As a bonus, he’ll also end up about $50 richer. Not bad for a 10 year old, eh?