She Can Mow!

Not a whole lot going on this weekend, it's super boring around here, actually.  I feel like we are still recovering from our big Spring Break vacation.  We have an embarrassing amount of laundry piled up in our laundry room, and I still have not unpacked yet, but the important things have been taken care of... drinking wine, a Harry Potter marathon, and walking Journey, so that's good.  I am not the most fun person to be around right now, as I approach my son's birthday.  I'm a total wreck.  I really just need to get through next weekend so that my heart can go back to being only achy, not painful.  I hate this time of year. 

Anyway.

One thing that we did accomplish this weekend, though, was teaching Isabelle how to mow the lawn!  I have mowed a lawn twice in my entire life, the first time when I was 32 years old.  Somewhere in being a single parent to a toddler, going to school full time while working full time, meeting, getting engaged to, then marrying the man of my dreams, raising my daughter, and graduating college with two degrees, learning how to mow a lawn got lost in the shuffle.  
We figured it was time for our 12 year old to learn how to use a lawn mower, because we're pretty sure we're going to wake up tomorrow and she'll be 32.

Isabelle gets a weekly allowance and is pretty conservative when it comes to spending (except when it comes to the ice cream man.  He's making a small fortune off my kid).  Isabelle begged for a smartphone for over a year when we finally decided that she was mature enough to get one.  Initially, we felt that her pay-as-you-go very basic phone was enough until we get back to the States, but she wouldn't let up.  Eric and I talked about it and ultimately decided to use her report card and first semester in middle school to gauge her maturity level for getting a smartphone.  We wanted to make sure that she could handle the transition from elementary to middle school, and especially wanted her to transition first, without the distraction of a smartphone.  We gave her six months to convince us that she deserved it, and braced ourselves for a slip on her report card while keeping our eyes & ears open to drama she was sure to encounter.  
But Isabelle's got gumption, and a smartphone was on the line!  She landed on the honor roll just like she has every semester since birth, and transformed into a middle schooler in the blink of an eye!  Learning how to go to a different class for each class period and having a different teacher for each class, plus being the youngest grade on campus didn't phase her.  So, she got a smartphone for her 12th birthday, with the agreement that she pay the €10/month for her data usage from her allowance.  

If she's mature enough for a smartphone then she's mature enough to mow the lawn.  And mowing the lawn is now added to her list of monthly chores, and now her goal is to get an iPhone when we get back to the States.  {Insert eye-roll here}  That's a lot of lawn mowing, kid!  

So like I said, not a whole lot going on.  Pretty boring, actually!  But there's a brand new lawn mowing kid on our street, so that's exciting....right?!