May 3, 2002 - Friday
A tree branch fell in our side yard this afternoon as the result of fairly high winds. I noticed it before I left to get Harry and Jeremy for daycare, but didn't have a chance to do anything about it. By the time we got home, Jeremy had fallen asleep in the car and I let him sleep a bit while Harry and I picked up the pieces of wood strewn about. I moved the bigger pieces to the pile in the woods and got a large cardboard box to save the smaller pieces for kindling. Harry did a fine job helping, carrying a couple sticks to the woods and putting several smaller ones in the box.

But, Harry tells it differently. On two occasions while we were filling the kindling box, Harry said to me "thanks, dad, that's very helpful" as if it were I helping him collect the firewood. The first time I wasn't quite sure what I heard, but then I later when I said "thank you, Harry, that's very helpful," he corrected me and again thanked me for being the one who was helpful.

In a seemingly unrelated incident a short time after we were done I tried to hold Harry's hand to help him climb the three steps from the garage into the house. I do this every time we go in together, but this time he did not want my hand. Instead, I heard him say softly that he did not want help and that he "wanted to be like dad." I've never heard him say that before and in this case it apparently meant walking up the stairs without help. But, there's no way to hear that without thinking at least twice about it and, walking up the stairs without help excepted, I definitely have mixed feelings about the idea.


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