My husband and daughter were gone last weekend, so my boys, five and seven, invited a buddy to sleep over. Oh for a hidden camera to preserve the spirit of these three boys who exist for one purpose: to squeeze the life out of every waking minute.
Sports consumed them for the first couple hours. Sammy exploded into the house to report that he had hit a baseball all the way to our porch window. He seemed surprise by my response. “Did you break it?” What an irrelevant thing to ask a five-year-old after the biggest hit of his life.
Later, they took over the swing set – not swinging or sliding or using any of the accessories for their intended purpose, of course. The ladder was on the ground. They spun the horse in circles, wrapped the swing around the top bar, and scaled all the walls except the one intended for climbing – the rock wall.
I dragged them on a short errand to my parent’s house. There they found a jumper and invented a wrestling/jumping/basketball game, the spontaneous rules of which they each understood perfectly.
The promise of pizza and pop drove them bonkers, and effectively bribed them away from the jumper. While they waited for their gourmet meal, they waged a Nerf gun War of Terror in our basement. Their impressive arsenal of arms includes a crossbow, pistols, rifles, lasers and even an automatic weapon that delivers Velcro-tipped bullets at an alarming force.
I find them in every corner of our house including, most recently, the bottom of my purse. I fully expect to walk into a meeting someday with a bullet dangling from the back of my jacket.
As we concluded our perfect meal, the clock struck 7:30. The October sky was already dark.
“How’d you like to go for a night walk?” I asked.
All six eyes widened and sparkled and the boys burst forth with a collective, “Yaaahh!” For a moment, they looked at me sideways in disbelief, as if I had just offered them an endless supply of Laffy Taffy and three uninterrupted hours of Wii.
As we prepared for the walk, one of them said, “You know, there’s been a lot more crime here lately.” The others solemnly agreed. They grabbed a flashlight and armed themselves. Not with weapons from the Nerf cache -- that would be foolish. “We’d lose the bullets, mom.”
No, they grabbed a device dreaded by all hardened criminals: rubber bands. We set out -- our loyal chocolate lab and a fearless band of rubber-band-bearing boys -- unafraid of any danger we might face at dusk in Bismarck.
For the entire 20-minute walk they discussed various plans of attack should we encounter “night robbers.” Wrestling, shooting them in the eyes and knocking them where the sun doesn’t shine were the most popular schemes.
Fortunately, we made it home without incident. After a competitive game of Sorry Sliders and their favorite creatures-of-the-desert book, they had consumed the day’s final drops of life. The three tireless tykes were tuckered out.
I kissed them and left them with their rubber bands and bullets to defeat the bad guys of their dreams.
Little boys -- marvels of energy, courage, curiosity and competiveness. Sadly, these qualities don’t always conform to the designs of modern childhood. Still, let us nurture not suppress the best of these traits so our future men might fulfill their potential to lead, defend, love and live life to the fullest.
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