This post is an experiment. Moxie is out of town for the rest of the week, the kids are off school for Spring Break, and I am tasking them with the specific goal of busying themselves without the benefit of any electronics whatsoever. All the colorful, glowing rectangles have been turned off, and the boys have three overcrammed shelf units of books, games, LEGOs, and drawing supplies to engage their brains' ability to create, rather than absorb.
Left to these devices, we'll see how long they can go before I need to get up and referee some kind of brotherstrife.
The kids have reached a golden age, I think. Robert is 10, teetering on the abyss of tweenerhood but still a font of factoids about battles and-- excuse me.
* * *
They were playing Connect Four, and TwoBert demanded that black go before red because black has more letters.
You can tell that Robert is approaching his sullen years, because he's starting to test boundaries and question what he's told to do. More directives are devolving into negotiations, until daddy has to pull the the Dieu et mon droit clause out of his butt and-- dammit. Hold on.
* * *
They were playing Uno, and Robert says he called Uno before TwoBert did, and TwoBert disagreed so they did Rock-Paper-Scissors to decide it, but Robert kept interlocking his fingers to make the BOMB symbol, and TwoBert said YOU CAN'T USE BOMB YOU STUPID but Robert did anyway, so TwoBert did it, too, and MY BOMB BEATS YOUR BOMB and NO IT DOESN'T and YES IT DOES NO IT DOESN'T THEY'RE BOTH BOMBS! AND MY HANDS ARE BIGGER SO MY BOMB IS BIGGER DAAAAAYAAD!
Where was I?
Oh, yes. TwoBert, who will turn 7 next month, is a quick study in the school of first-grade socialization. As much as Robert seeks to control him, TwoBert is just as likely to fight back and hold his ground. He's perfecting his own sense of conversational judo that uses an opponent's strength to his own advantage. Just the other day, he-- goddammit!
* * *
They're building an indoor fort, and they can't agree on where to keep the weapons arsenal because if you put it in the courtyard by the door, then enemies can reach in and get them while you're asleep. But then there's no room for the library and the sleeping quarters, and now I think they need to go outside, but NO TODAY IS A HANGOUT DAY and Sure, but it's nice out and you clearly have some Kiddie Kilowatts to burn off, but NO WE DECIDED but No, I decided, and NO BECAUSE IF I GET ON ROBERT'S SHOULDERS WE'RE TALLER THAN YOU AND WHAT WE SAY GOES!!
And so forth.
What have we learned from this experiment? The three French men defy thermodynamics. Our resting state is chaos.
