Finding a Solution

I love it that I am teaching my kids to "find a solution" to their troubles.

I like it that they are becoming self-starters. They can formulate and implement ideas with an end goal in mind. They learn to think about their questions and investigate the answers. These things are important to a child's education.

As a parent, I love to watch this process develop. Usually.....

This morning I heard a crash from the bathroom, I heard, "uh, mom..." from my eight year old son. Then I heard water. I am very grateful for the water shut off valve to the toilet. This stopped the water from pouring onto the bathroom floor. While we used four bath towels to mop up the mess, I got the rest of the story.

"For some strange reason, mom, the toilet would not flush. So I decided to see what the problem was. But the lid was very heavy, and it fell into the back of the toilet and now there's a big hole, and all the water fell out."

Yes, this is our only toilet. Thankfully, I have a very intelligent father-in-law with loads of life experience. My husband explained to me that the toilet works on a siphon and if I simply dump a large bucket of water from the tub into the toilet, it will flush. My skeptical mind imagined a disaster, but I had a dancing beep boy next to me and an encouraging husband on the phone, and lo and behold, it worked. Yeah!