Let the Wild Rumpus Start...

It's not that I think my kids are monsters. Actually, I think they're great and mostly well behaved. I've found myself pretty frustrated the past few days, as obviously stated in my previous posts, and Dusty and I had a conversation about this today at lunch as the boys were having a war with their chopsticks. It's not that they're disobedient. It's not that they have bad intentions. It's that they're BOYS. I've seen families with two girls and I've seen families with a boy and a girl. There's something unique and special about any of these combinations, but put more than one boy in the room and there's wrestling - there's pretend fighting with swords and light savers - there's superheroes and bad guys - there's couches to climb and pillows to throw - there's two little wild things running around my house. Let the wild rumpus start. Let's face it, I am a referee - at least temporarily.

This is how it all begins. Silas, my child with the wildest imagination on the planet will be pretending to be someone or something, creating a scene from his own little imaginary world. Eli, who thinks his older brother is the coolest person in existence, joins in, copying everything Silas does. Before I know it, they are pretending to be bad guys or whatever it may be and one or the other gets a little too excited. You realize little kids have no boundaries or understanding of being too rough. They're not being malicious or trying to hurt one another, but inevitably, one or both does indeed end up hurt. Then, they'll come crying to me saying that the other hurt him. This puts me in an awkward dilemma. How do I explain to Silas that Eli didn't mean to hurt him, he was just playing? "But momma, Eli kicked me." "Yes, Silas, but you were playing Kung Fu." Silas doesn't get this. "But, he KICKED me!"

The other puzzling question - they are boys, and I want them to be boys and not think it's wrong to play - but creating boundaries is next to impossible at their ages. Silas is getting old enough to where he has a better understanding of being gentle when they're playing. For example, let's say they're playing swords. Silas will gently tap his sword against Eli's, but then Eli will whack Silas on the head with full force. Do I take the swords away? Who even bought my children swords? Oh wait, thanks Uncle Nate!

Yet another dilemma - if I let them play like this at home, then they think this is okay in other circumstances. Silas and some friends got in trouble one day at school for tackling. No good. So, it's okay at home, but not school? I've always thought this to be quite confusing. The first time I was perplexed about this was when Silas was a little baby. I had one of those big plastic balls and was trying to teach him to throw it to me. When he finally figured it out, we were cheering him on, "Yaaaay, Silas. You did it!!" He was getting praised for throwing the ball, but was confused later when he couldn't throw his other toys. How do you explain to a 9 month old that you can throw balls, but nothing else?

Now back to their rough playing - how do I stop it? It's all they want to do. Part of being a boy is being a little wild at heart. Have you ever read the book? I read it in college and couldn't put it down. I would love to pick it up again, now that I am a blessed mommy of two little boys. It's within their nature to explore, pretend, be rambunctious, get dirty, etc. Wouldn't something be wrong if they weren't playing on the floor, making insanely loud noises and crashing their cars together? This morning, I was getting Silas dressed and he simply would not be still - he was being silly and wanted to play. I told him, "Silas, you are not being good." Okay, maybe I phrased this wrong - I should have told him he wasn't listening. However, he looked right up at me and said sweetly, "Momma, I'm just a boy." I thought this was funny and quite profound for my little 4 year old. Later, I walked in the living room and they had made a fort out of pillows between the love seat and couch. As they say, boys will be boys.

2 and 4. 2 and 4. I think I'll have to constantly remind myself of this for the next little while. They are so sweet, lovable and irresistibly cute. They have the sweetest personalities and both have such soft hearts. They also have the attention span of gnats - tell them to "stop" and they've forgotten within 60 seconds. Okay, okay - occasionally they can play without getting too crazy. This morning, Silas told Eli to be a baby puppy. He found one of my work out bands, put the loop around Eli's wrist as if he were on a leash and walked him around the house. All the while, Eli was barking and Silas directed him, "Come on little baby puppy, come on. Sweet little baby puppy. Come on." Then, they both became baby puppies, crawling around the house barking and panting. Yes, it's true. Too bad I didn't think to video it on my phone. Next time, for sure.

And now - some photos for your enjoyment. We went to Balboa Park this morning for a bit and took a few photos of our two little wild things.