What I Did With My Kids Today: Part 3

As you guys know, I have been making more of an effort lately to talk about the things I do with my kids that don’t necessarily have anything to do with clothes.

And when I do those things, I try to impart some lessons to my kids. I try to be intentional.

Well, a while back, I had a little mishap as I drove my son to school and tried my best to use it as a teaching opportunity for my eight-year-old son.

Here’s what happened…

I live in a very rural area and there is no bus service to my oldest son’s school. That means either my wife or I have to drive him every morning. The route to school is, again, pretty remote and there are patches of little-to-no cell service along the way.

That morning wasn’t terribly cold for the time of year… maybe 35 degrees or so, but that just meant that the snow had time to melt juuuussst enough to form a thick layer of slush on the roads.

We get about 5 miles from home when the car gets a flat tire.

Ok, no big deal… I’ve had this car for 14 years and have changed tires on it many times. There was actually a really convenient dirt patch on the side of the road to turn off into.

So far, everything is fine. I knew we’d be late to school, but I knew it would only take me maybe 20 minutes to change the tire. I thought we’d be back on the road in no time!

I also got a little excited to show my son how to change a tire. So, I have him hop out of the car and I bundle him up in the coat and gloves he had in his backpack.

I grab the jack and iron out of the trunk and start to narrate what I’m doing. I show him how to loosen the nuts on the tire first. I then kneel down into the slush to jack up the car.

Thankfully, I had some work gloves in the car because the jack and iron were freezing! The slush everywhere didn’t help, either.

And, I apparently have only ever changed tires on non-slushy ground because once I got the car jacked up to sufficient height… the jack slipped out from underneath it and the car fell to the ground!

That actually frightened me a little bit watching the whole car shift and then drop.

I tried a couple more times to jack up the car, but the jack kept slipping.

What the heck was I going to do? As I tried to think of a solution, I realized that we were VERY late to school at this point. So, I pulled out my phone only to realize that we had no cell service. None.

Ok, still not a huge deal. However, I knew that the school would call my wife when my son didn’t show up on time. That would worry my wife a great deal, understandably, so I wanted to get in touch with her somehow to let her know everything was ok.

So, I needed to get the car up and running pronto.

Again, I am narrating all of this to my son. I am basically thinking out loud. The biggest thing I wanted to show him was how to stay calm and not get frustrated when things don’t go your way.

Ok, back to the slippery jack…

How could I brace it well enough to jack up the car so I could change the tire?

I then remembered I had some cardboard in the trunk. Maybe I could put down a few pieces of it for the jack to sit on top of so it wasn’t sitting directly in the slush. I figured maybe that would give it a little friction.

So, I ripped up some cardboard and laid it down in the muck. Success! I got the car jacked up and was finally able to remove the flat tire.

Or so I thought!

Try as I might, I could NOT get the tire off! Now, I have experienced this many times before… the wheel sometimes rusts and won’t slide off. I usually give it a good ‘ol karate kick and that usually does the trick.

Let me tell you, I was kicking the crap outta this thing! I’m pretty strong and I wear heavy boots and I could not budge this darn wheel.

After probably 20 minutes, I accepted defeat. I realized I had no feasible way of removing this tire.

I began running through some solutions… my son and I could walk up the road a ways. There was a local town hall not far from where we were stranded. But I didn’t know exactly how far it was (was it a mile? 3 miles?) and I didn’t feel comfortable walking with my son on a rural road in the early morning in iffy weather.

I also didn’t feel comfortably knocking on doors asking to use a phone. I live in a very safe area, but my son was with me and I wanted to be as careful as possible.

I finally decided that I would need to make an emergency call on my cell phone. Even though I didn’t have service, I could still call 911 if I needed to. I planned on calling and making it very clear that it was NOT an emergency, but I was stranded with no other options.

Luckily, I didn’t have to make that call. Right as I about to dial, a guy pulled up and asked if we needed any help.

Long story short (too late!) I was able to use his phone (he had service, somehow) to call my wife. He also had a heavy hammer in his truck that he used to bash the heck out of the wheel to loosen it.

Once he did that, I was able to pop the spare tire on and drive the rest of the way to school.

Phew! Quite an ordeal for a random Wednesday morning!

So, why did I choose this particular instance to share in this space? Well, like I said, I was narrating everything I was doing. Once the tire blew out I knew that this was a good chance to demonstrate to my son how to think through problems and not get frustrated when things don’t go your way.

Little did I realize just how many things were not going to go my way!

But it kind of worked out better, in a way. I was able to show him how when one thing fails, you just move onto the next thing. Getting upset or irritated that we were late or whatever wouldn’t have solved anything. It actually would have made the situation worse because it just would have wasted time.

Even though I was indeed frustrated, I needed to show my son that cool, collected thinking and reasoning is always the better way.

The situation also gave me the chance to talk to my son about being prepared. Specifically, I told him that it’s important when it’s cold out to make sure you have warm clothes in the car, since you never know when you’ll need to be outside for any reason. We were both pretty chilled when we eventually got the car going again… me because I was kneeling in slush and getting it all over my hands (even with gloves on) and him because all he could do was stand and watch me.

A good coat and warm, waterproof gloves are essential to have in your vehicle in the winter.

Speaking of preparation… guess what I immediately went out and bought to keep in my car from now on? A big, heavy hammer! Now I’ll always be able to get that dang, rusted wheel off in a pinch!

I also made sure to let him know how important it is to tell people where you’re going and when you’ll be there. My concern that my wife would be worried was also something I made sure to point out to him, as a man should always take his loved one’s feelings into account.

We ended up being about an hour late to school. Not ideal, but I hope I was able to use that hour as wisely as I could and give him some instruction he wouldn’t be able to get in the classroom.