Building Self Worth and Helpful Attitude.

T and I had just finished reading a book. I had moved back to the baby books so that T (almost 4) could recognize the words more easily.
What is that word T?
"Baby." he replied. And then he sounded out the letters in an exaggerated fashion. Just like daddy does it.
"T, the word hug is on this page. Can you find it?"
I switched to T trying to find words instead of sounding them all out. He seems to enjoy this more and is making great progress.
He scanned the page and sounded the word out loud: "hhhhuuuugggg".
He pointed to the word hug on the page.
I smiled and laughed. "You are doing it man! You are reading!" He smiled a huge smile and hugged and kissed me back.
Next he recognized the word play. We hugged and kissed and celebrated all over again. His face was beaming.
We put the book away while T was on a high note and I asked him what he would like to do next. He was not sure. It was pouring out, so our options were limited.
"T, do you want to help me clean up my golf balls for the golf tournament next weekend?"
"Yes!" T exclaimed excitedly.
We went to the basement and pulled out the bag of golf balls that we had retrieved from our walks on the golf course that winter.
I extracted all of the Titlest proV 1 balls and T got the rest. T got the bowl of water and I grabbed the soap and a towel. We scrubbed and scrubbed the balls.
"You know T, when I am at the golf tournament next weekend, every time I use one of these balls I will think of all of the great work that you did."
T smiled and said: "Thanks dad."
I found a couple of Noodles and Nike balls and knew that my partner Bruce would be thankful to play those balls. "T, can you clean these for Uncle Bruce? He loves this brand."
"Sure."
We hugged and kissed many times as we cleaned up the golf balls. Next we went upstairs and cleaned my clubs. T was scouring the house after we were done, trying to find more golf balls to clean. We had a great time.
I gave Uncle Bruce his golf balls the following weekend and he was really excited about T's effort.
win-win-win.