Go ahead and kick it.

When it comes to my children it is pretty clear that I a fierce defender of their interests. I do whatever I can to enable my children to be the best people they can be and do test their abilities. If my son asks if I think it is possible for him to I try to guide him to determine for himself if a task is within his ability. This week he set out to try to make a large snow man entirely on his own. Usually he enlists the help of his father or myself for adding the head and whatnot because he isn't strong enough to lift a heavy ball of snow quite that high. For the last two years these little punks from down the street have snuck in the backyard and knocked down our snowmen. We don't know these kids and they really just seem to target our snowmen for no particular reason. The knocking down of the snowmen usually makes my children quite upset. This year my son crafted a large snowman for the first time completely on his own. He feels quite proud of this accomplishment. My husband and I have decided to keep the little punks from getting to our snowman and we are sticking some steel rods down the center of the snowman. Our hope is that this will make the kicking and pushing over of this particular snowman slightly less fun than previous years.