A call to arms

When my eight year old son is by himself, or in the company of his two sisters, he enjoys quiet things: carefully putting together thousand piece lego structures, researching new lego kits on the internet, watching other kids' youtube videos of themselves playing with legos, and maybe even reading a book about lego characters.

But, when you invite another boy into the equation, there is suddenly a burst of energy and an instantaneous call to arms. Our children met a boy who is visiting his mother over his spring break and is living next door for the week. They met at a lemonade sale in our front yard (in which the only customers were my husband and my mother :-). Going inside, the boys asked, "What is there to do?" I encouraged them to think of something themselves and was somewhat amazed with the response. The next few hours were filled with war games with careful strategies and clearly defined rules.

Nerf gun wars inside upstairs
Pool noodle wars
Light saber wars
quick snack break
a folding chair by a tree...I missed that...no telling what that was about
Pool noodles duct-taped to light sabers for extra reinforcement and length wars
Wizard battles with wands (in which my youngest daughter was allowed to play)
Wizard hide and seek war

And then my favorite, shooting nerf bullets and trying to swing at them like baseball with the light sabers. This was impressive and actually took some skill. But as I was trying to prepare dinner and keep the downstairs neat for company that was on the way over, my cries of "Upstairs or outside" didn't seem to be heard without some volume.

Dinner with friends was delightful in which the friends' children joined in with our kids and made up more mysterious games upstairs that must have involved our treadmill and a tarzan-like vine of crocheted scarves. Some days I am amazed that anyone in our household has survived to the age of 10.

My active smelly guerilla warfare boy after his shower still loves to throw his arms around me and tell me that he loves me too. I pray for the little girl that will someday become his wife. May he be just as tender with her as he is with me.

A younger B sharpening his Jedi Knight skills with his Uncle