There are times when I look at my son and say, “STOP DOING THAT!” ‘That’, of course, is usually something involving torturing his sister. Of course, she tortures him as well, usually through made up songs.
Since Laureen’s birthday is coming up, last night, Jacob called a meeting of the family-not-Laureen in his room. He stated, “we are going to build a castle out of Legos for Mommy.”
Trait #1: leadership — able to articulate a clear vision.
Jacob then assigned jobs for Jessie and me. Jessie was to find windows and match them to window frames. My original task was to find 2×4 lego bricks and 2×2 lego bricks. I started picking through the metric ton of legos, marveling how their shapes have gotten stranger and stranger with every generation, when Jacob told me: “Daddy, you’re doing a good job, but I need for you to pre-build some blocks for me with what you’re making.”
Trait #2: leadership — ability to correct subordinates when they go astray.
He then specified that I was to build a cube out of 4 2×4 bricks and then put two 1x4s underneath them. He never actually told me the reason why, but a look over at what he was doing made it clear; he’d built a little forklift, and these blocks were like pallets that could be picked up and “delivered” to the job site.
Trait #3: project management — knowing when you need better tools.
Trait #4: project management — delegation of busy work to Dad.
After I had built several of these little modules, Jacob said, “Dad, you’re doing great. Just three more and you can take a break.”
Trait #5: micromanagement. Can’t win ’em all.
After a while, I took Jessie over to her room to sleep. Jacob continued building legos in his factory, moving the raw materials to the job site, and constructing Laureen’s castle.