Jake will be strolling through my shop, stop and look a section from my current project and say, "Nice wood, Daddy. Good job." Ha, ha! With him and his mother I now have a whole cheering section.

He's a tidy little kid so I usually put him to work sweeping up the sawdust from the workbench and tools, which he digs ("make a mess"). I'm thinking the next thing we'll move onto is a fun little game called "hand-sanding".

My dad used to get a kick out of having us help wrap our own Christmas gifts. He would pull this off by packaging them in nondescript boxes and asking for some assistance.

I think I'll try a variation on this with Jake's gifts. "Hey, Jake, can you sand this for me?"