Oh What a Difference a Year Makes

Alex volunteered to mow the lawn yesterday.  After Travis and I picked ourselves up off the floor, I headed out to supervise this adventure.  I have to say, he did great!  I did have to stand at the end of each row for a while to keep him headed in a straight line, and his "pattern" was definitely not the neat diagonal lines his dad prefers, but all in all, he did a good job.

I walked with him while he did one big border loop around the lot line to give him a guideline so he didn't mow random lines into the neighbors' yeards and at the end of that loop, he let the mower turn off so he could do a quick shake out on his hands.  He said he wanted to keep going so I told him I would start the mower back up for him.  Nope.  No need Mom.  He did it.  He is now big enough to pull start the mower.

Just for comparison's sake, this was last year at this time when he wanted to mow:

  And this is this year:

Too bad he hasn't really grown at all in the past year, amirite?