Quality time on aisle two

It was a routine trip to Lowe's. I needed one thing: a silly little plastic bracket to hold a closet door in place. In and out, right? The trip went according to plan until we walked by the tractors. At first I was annoyed that Tyler wanted to check them out, but my grown-up mentality quickly gave way to the wonder of watching a little boy explore a big machine.

Tyler didn't just sit in a couple seats and pretend to move the steering wheels. He sat in every seat. He checked every gear, pushed every button, and made rumbling lawnmower noises as he cranked the wheel from side to side. He laughed when he heard the big tires squeak on the warehouse floor. He moved levers from "turtle" to "rabbit" and from short grass to long. He offered running commentary on the color and size of each machine, how comfortable each seat was, and whether the canopy would provide good protection from the sun on a hot day. His imagination was in overdrive, and he could have puttered there for an hour.









Eventually we wandered away from the tractors to find the bracket. We finally found it on aisle two for a whopping $2.77. I would have considered our trip a success because I got exactly what I needed for a good price, but today the success came in an unexpected way: Tyler helped me see the world through the eyes of a child.