Learning Letters

We got my son a chalkboard for his room and my dear husband put it up today.  Little Boy Blue and I spent nearly an hour on it spelling out simple words.  It's magnetic so we used his magnetic letters, too.  We got it at IKEA.  LBB loves to go there because he can play in their playroom and eat dinner there, too.  Mommy and Daddy wanted to get a few more storage cubes so we went last night.  I've been thinking about getting him an easel there, but didn't really want him to have crayons or markers in his room.  And we usually go outside for painting.  But chalk is totally cool.  I doubt he would use it on the walls, because when a neighbor did that (and got him to do it) it was a big deal.  He remembers it; he actually brought it up last week, I think because he was processing this little life lesson.  If he does he'll have a stiff punishment.  But theoretically, it should be easier to clean up.  We had to paint over the last incident, and the paint the previous owners left wasn't a perfect match.  We have paint to redo all the walls and need to get moving on that again.  But the point is that he loved it.  He can sound out the letters and read short words.  And he wanted to today, which is the important thing.  I know he's been ready to for a long time, he's known all the letters and their sounds for a year and a half.  But he never wants to work on it.  I try, gently, all the time.  I have to be careful not to force it on him because my boy is very stubborn.  (Gets tit frm his dad, I'm sure :) I don't want it to be a contest of wills where he won't just because I want him to... but today he was excited.  And successful.  We spelled F-A-R-T.  He had a blast.  So to speak.
Today or tomorrow I am going to attempt to change out the bathroom faucet, handle and shower head.  I may change the oil today on the mommy van and wait on the faucet.  I'll have to do the drain another day, anyway, because we haven't bought one yet.  Our very hard, very alkaline water strikes again.  Since the builders used the cheapest parts possible, we are replacing them instead of trying to just do the gaskets and hope nothing else breaks down.  The tub drain has always leaked, but slowly.  If I can't do it, well, we would have had to call a plumber anyway.  The risk is that we can't turn the water back on until it's fixed.  I've seen it done, at our last house, and it looked so simple that I told myself I wouldn't pay someone else to do that again.  Wish me luck. Tonight DH and I are going out for a date.  So we have time constraints, too. I'm actually considering about putting it off until tomorrow morning, becaus we have a better chance of getting a plumber out the same day.  (or so I'm telling myself). Plan B scenario.  We have so much work to do around the house.  I really want to have topsoil delivered because our lawn looks terrible.  We grow weeds better than grass, becaus eI don't want to put chemicals down all the time.  We don't have dirt, as in decomposing organic matter, we have clay and rock.  But we still need to repair a piece of facia torn off by high winds before we worry about the yard.