Yesterday Seth was having a really bad, no good, terrible day. He, for the first time in his life, was attempting to do a complete, front and rear, brake job on his car including putting on all new rotors (most brake jobs just get new pads).

After not being able to bust loose the lugs on his tires because the guys who put on his new tires put them on too tight and after breaking two sockets and a wrench trying, a trip to Ada to the tire shop to get them loosened and two trips to Ada because the parts store gave him wrong parts... he was pretty much at his wits end.

His Dad volunteered to make the last needed trip to Ada for him and Seth came in and laid his head down on the bar opposite of where I was working in the kitchen. I went over and massaged his head a minute and just let him sit there for another minute or two, then I told him he needed to man-up, stop his whining, his ranting, ravings and cussing, and just do what had to be done because all that getting mad does is expend more energy and make the work harder than ever.

He started to balk at that reprimand. stopped. took a deep breath. sat there and stared at me a minute.

then he came around the bar, fixed himself a whopper of a sandwich, poured a coke and by the time his Dad got back he had put himself into a better frame of mind and went out and finished the job with no more incidents.

I was so very proud of him for accepting my criticism and just acknowledging that he knew I was right and that he had been acting badly/stupidly.

He is such a great kid.