I Don't Know How My Dad Did It!

I really don't!  Dad taught drivers education to high school kids in southern Tippecanoe County for 35 years....I really wish I had invited him down to help me teach Bear how to mow the yard!

I should have taken pictures or a video of this great moment, but there wasn't time, and I didn't want you to hear the language I was muttering was too caught up in the moment to take them.

GOOD GRIEF!

Tink took her turn a couple days ago, and Tall Guy monitored her while I was busy inside.  No problems.  This girl always thinks INSIDE the box and is very careful and detail oriented about such tasks.  I could say she is like her father....

Bear, on the other hand, cannot stay inside the box~!  That speaks highly to her very imaginative mind and creativity (just like her mom); HOWEVER, these qualities are not the most desirable when your child is on a big mower trying to follow the lines her mom set for her.   I am a straight-line following mower. It's probably the only (or one of the few) times I pay attention to guidelines and boundaries.

I wish I had video-taped her, but I will try to paint the picture for you.  She was mowing out in the back yard, and I had already trimmed around all the fences, buildings, and the swing set.  All she had to do was drive straight east, turn around, and drive straight west.  Simple right?  Well, not always.

First she, like a lot of us, decided that mowing the lawn was the best time to try out her singing voice. Bear truly embraced the moment, taking in all of her surroundings while belting out the song from Frozen and a few others like Band Perry's "Chainsaw."  If she knew the words, I probably would have heard the great song from Oklahoma, " Oh, What a Beautiful Morning!" This would have been quite entertaining, but she was looking up at the sky as she sang, turning a pretty straight rectangle of mowing space in to lopsided triangles.

5 out of the 7 times she went to turn around, she turned the wrong way....A couple times she turned before she was done with the path she was on, and other times she turned the right way but didn't go back in on her cut line until she was about 4 feet into that round.

Not what this momma had in mind... We have already mentioned that Lana backwards is Anal right?

I was trying to get her attention with hand signals and a loud voice, but she just went on her merry, musical way, until I trotted out and stood smack in front of her.

Tall Guy said I should just relax and, to take from the song, "Let her go.  Let her go!"  His philosophy is to just let Bear and Tink mow to their best ability, and we will tidy up after them once they have finished a spot.

BAH!  You have to know, dear reader, that this is an absolute polar opposite situation between TG and me.  I'm usually the one blurring the lines, and he is an exact, by-the-book kind of guy.  I was also the daughter of a very good, long standing driver's ed teacher.

The end result was that Bear did her best, and I went back to trim up her misses.  It's not a big deal, but I can't help but transfer these lawn mowing skills to the inevitable moment we both get behind the wheel of a gator/tractor/truck/van/car.   I think I will let Tall Guy teach driving lessons!  It isn't good on the nerves of OCD mommas like me!