I've found yet another indication of God's sense of humor and as usual it has come from my children. Why is it that my kids would rather help me do yard work, and I'd rather be riding a bike? God thought it would be funny to give kids the desire to do grown- up work, and grown- ups the desire to be kids. I don't understand it.

It's not that I don't enjoy planting azaleas but, if given the choice, I'd rather scream down a single- track trail on a mountain bike. OK, maybe scream refers more to the noise emanating from my mouth than my actual speed, but the point is that youth is wasted on the young.

For example, my oldest daughter happily spent most of her Labor Day holiday handing me screws for the fence I'm building in our backyard. Does that sound like much fun? It was to her. In fact, she got in a bit of a shoving match with her younger brother who had the nerve to grab a couple of screws from the box and hand them to me when she wasn't looking. Apparently, she didn't like the little guy muscling in on her turf. She could have been playing with Barbies, but instead she was willing to fight for the opportunity to hand me screws. I just don't get it.

Undeterred from his brief attempt at screw duty and the shove that followed it, my four- year- old son found another job. It didn't involve a Big Wheel, but rather a hammer. I don't know how he found it, but I do know he got several good whacks on my new fence before I realized what he was doing. After a childlike fit from me, he turned his attention to some sticks on the ground and a couple of dead trees...well, at least they're dead now. It kept him occupied for a while, but his swings were coming dangerously close to his ears and my backside so I had to put a stop to that.

"What can I help with now Daddy?" he asked.

"Nothing Son," I responded. "Go play."

"When do I get a turn?" he asked pointing to the electric drill in my hand.

"You don't," I said as frankly as possible.

"Why not?" he asked quite surprised by my answer. "You've been using it all day. It's time to give someone else a turn."

That was his honest response. He truly believed I was playing, and now it was rightly his turn to power up the drill. It was as if he'd been waiting patiently for his chance at a Yo- Yo.

Strangely enough, this made more sense to me than my daughter's desire to dole out the screws. At least he thought we were playing, and I can just imagine what he thought he could do to those poor trees with the drill. My oldest daughter just wanted to help, which is nice, but perplexing.

My youngest daughter has not fallen prey to God's sense of humor. She helped with the fence for a little while, but after a couple minutes of handing me fence pickets she disappeared into her secret fort with a few mermaid Barbies. So while her older sister was dutifully handing out screws and her younger brother was killing trees, she was actually playing. That made perfect sense to me and may have just helped me the most.