By Jeremy D. Wells
Carter County Times
This year was our toddler’s third Christmas and – at two and a half – the first one where he’s really starting to get the holiday. He didn’t know what was going on at all his first Christmas; though his big brother enthusiastically assisted with his paper ripping.
Last year he understood the paper ripping a little more, but he still didn’t quite grasp the concept of gifts and required a little prompting.
This year, he got it. He is also now vocal enough to communicate what he wants. So, when he opened his new Tickle Me Elmo doll, he didn’t just grin at it and pat its head like he might have done before. Instead he smiled broadly and thrust the box at his mother and me while repeating the word, “open,” and the phrase, “get it out.”
He also had to open and play with his new puzzles right away.
The highlight, for me, came on Christmas morning though (we open our presents on Christmas Eve) when he came out and found his present from Santa.
He loves to steal my tools when I’m working on something – screwdriver, drill, wrench, it doesn’t matter – and run off with it. Where exactly he picked up the idea of “fixing” his various ride-on toys I don’t know, but that’s always what he does when he gets his hands on one of my tools. The other day I stepped away from a shower door repair and found him in the living room with my Phillips head screwdriver, lying on his back and trying to crawl underneath his ride-on car. (When he couldn’t fit underneath it, he flipped it over on its side and began poking at the screws holding the seat on.)
So it was no surprise, but still adorable, when he came out and saw his new toy work bench and tool set, immediately snatched up the plastic crescent wrench, and went straight to his tricycle where he fit the head over the nut holding his pedals on and began to try tightening them.
Later he discovered the detachable LED workshop light (he loves flashlights for some reason), the screwdriver, and the working power drill. And he had fun with all of them, especially the hammer.
So much hammering. So much.
But the memory that will stick with me down through the years was the look of serious concentration on his face, mouth working his pacifier, as he took up that wrench and – a real sense of purpose in his tiny stride – set off to fix his trike.
He might have picked up some of the tool use from a cartoon – something like the Mickey Mouse or Handy Manny. He’s watched the Sesame Street episode where Elmo is a repair monster multiple times.
But there is a part of me that’s convinced his focus on vehicles is genetic. His grandpa Charlie loves cars, and motorcycles, and that love had included a lot of time tuning, tweaking, and maintaining them. In fact, according to his mommy, his grandpa once bought and traded cars so many times in a year the county wanted to force him to buy a dealer’s license – even though he never owned more than a couple at a time and all were used for personal use until they were sold or traded.
So, daddy may not be much of a car guy, but papaw is. And as he’ll tell you if you ask him, he’s definitely “papaw’s boy!”
That must be where it comes from.
Jeremy D. Wells can be reached at editor@cartercountytimes.com
