So there I was, standing in the kitchen, minding everyone else's business, when out of the blue, my son walks up.
"Can I vacuum the stairs?" he said.
"Can you what??" I asked, sure that the cleaning product fumes were causing hallucinations.
"Can I vacuum the stairs for you?"
Well, once I fully regained consciousness, and convinced myself that this vision of a helpful son was the real thing, I told my son he could DEFINITELY vacuum the stairs, but I wanted to know what had inspired him.
"There's this book on Monsters I want. I'd like to earn the money for it." he said.
I contemplated a back-flip. But the best I could ever do in gymnastics was a back-handspring and that was 19 years ago. I reconsidered.
"Well, that's fantastic! And of course you can earn the money for it!" I said, already scrambling to gather various vacuum attachments needed for the job.
He ended up doing a better job than I would have expected of a five year old. And I made him do it twice so that he really got the concept of putting effort into it.
Now, this wasn't the first time he's done chores, by any means. But this was the first time he'd ever had a goal, and offered his services so he could reach that goal.

I know there are a lot of you out there whose brilliant children could far outshine this little moment for me. But I shall still revel in it. It was a breakthrough. My 5 year old didn't just ask for something and expect to get it. He expected to earn the money to buy it himself. Wow. Consistency really works. It was one of those moments when I looked at my son and caught a glimpse of the fine man he's going to make some day. Color me Crayola-Periwinkle proud.