"Daddy wants the Phillips-head screwdriver, mommy," Archer said.
I went through the tool cabinet and retrieved what I figured to be a screwdriver and handed it over.
"Here you go,"
"Thank you, Mommy."
Ten seconds later Archer reemmerged. "This isn't the Phillips-head, Mommy. Daddy needs a different one."
"Oh. Okay." I finally found what ended up being the correct screwdriver and went back to tending to Fable, who was in one of her YOU WILL NOT CAN NOT PUT ME DOWN moods, which, fine, at least she's cute.
Five minutes later, I went to check on the boys. Archer had gone in the bedroom to "help Hal" put together his bed and I could just make out their voices, dancing down the hallway and into the living room.
I knocked on the door.
"Come in," Archer said. "Daddy and I are making a bed! See?"
Archer was clutching an empty plastic bag, arranging a dozen or so little screws for Hal, counting and arranging them neatly in two little piles. And then I thought, holy shit. This is one of those moments Archer is going to totally remember and Hal will never forget- the afternoon they first made something together, built something together and they will both go through their lives better men because they had this day with the one-thousand piece bed-set and all the screws and everything all over the floor and oh so sweet to see them bond holygodican'tevendealit'ssosweetandcute!
I got misty.
"See mommy! I'm counting screws!"
"I see that! You guys are doing an awesome job! High five!"
Archer gave me a high-five before getting back to business, his face swelling with pride.
Hal winked at me and went back to work and for two full hours Archer assisted him. The two of them side by side building our son's first bed.
When we decided, last week, that THIS weekend would be our great rearrangement of the furniture weekend, I felt kinda bad. Because it was Father's Day and I didn't want Hal to spend his entire weekend in and out of Ikea, sweating balls moving furniture, breaking his back, dealing with me changing my mind about where to place the bed and how far apart the dressers should be, but watching him today- Hal building a bed with his son, I thought, "could be worse. Could be a lot worse. And OMG could not be cuter OMG."
That was until hour three of the bed-building when I had to remove Archer from the room so Hal could scream expletives and strangle stuffed-animals until the bed was finished.
***
