Little Helpers

A couple of weeks ago, our garage door opener bit the dust.  It wouldn’t open the door at all, so we had to do it manually which is a pretty big pain when you’re used to just pushing a button.  Gratefully my dad knows how to do everything and installed a new opener for us.  I did my best to help, and my mom watched the kids.  (Brett was on a business trip.)  Emmy especially wanted to be in on the action when she wasn’t distracted playing with Grandma.  My dad was great with her and found a few things for her to hold or put on.  (Let’s be honest.  He was great with me too and let me hold a few things and put things on and tried to let me feel helpful even though I had no idea what I was doing. :) )  

During all the going in and out of the door from our kitchen to the garage, our door knob that had been finicky for months finally broke completely.  It left my dad stuck in the garage and I had to unscrew it from the inside to let him back in.  We stuck a towel in the hole to keep the cold air out, locked the dead bolt that night, and made a trip to Home Depot the next day.  I found a door knob that matched color-wise and studied the instructions.  We even dropped by my parents’ house “on the way” home so I could get a little advice from my dad before I attempted to put it in myself.  

After I got the kids in bed, I set to work installing the door knob.  I got two (of the four) screws in before Emmy crept down the stairs to “help” followed shortly by Abby (who never gets out of bed (she just cries or yells if she needs/wants something); thank you bad example of the big sister!).  The girls basically just stood there while I screwed in the last two screws.  (Installing a door knob in an existing hole is really very simple.)  Then they admired my amazing work, posed for a picture, and followed me back up to their room for bedtime take 2.

As they were falling asleep, I sent a text with this picture to my parents and Brett (still on business trip).  It said, “Door knob done in 5 minutes…even with these little helpers sneaking down to assist.”  Except that it auto-corrected “helpers” to “Hellers.”  I busted up laughing!  After three days on my own with three little “helpers” I could certainly agree that sometimes it felt more like “Hellers”!  :)