Boys Will Be Boys, Whether They Like It Or Not

I have a new obsession compulsion centered around physical activity for the young'uns.  Especially now that we have the Curse of Cable, I feel compelled to make sure that they get a modicum of "aerobic exercise" play during the day before plugging into Phineas and Ferb.  Ian duly went outside and engaged young Alec, our neighbor, who was playing hockey, with a goal set up right in the middle of the street.   I don't think Ian actually played hockey, but he went through the motions of moving muscles in the pastel-toned sunlight and the frigid air, and this entitles him to a modicum of Screen Time.  This is all the more important, now that I understand how beautifully they go to sleep when they've had a hyper-energetic day, or even a short period of extreme physical outlandishness.

But because I stayed home with Madeleine today, with her seasonal upper respiratory condition while Amy went to church with the boys, I didn't know whether Daniel had registered his quote of outside kinesthetics (calisthenics might be an overstatement in terms of the official requirement, although Daniel usually gets pretty aerobic without  being prompted, given the right setting).

So I asked Ian, "Did Daniel play outside today at church?"

And Ian provided an answer that captured the wonderful quirkiness of our boys - Ian's in terms of phrasing, and Daniel's in terms of actual activity:

"Yeah, he was crushing ice-snow with Joshua."

He went on to explain that it was ice-snow because the two boys would take ice and stomp on it until it had been reduced to "snow."  This is just the kind of thing that Daniel would find exhilarating, and perhaps a bit therapeutic, in the face of civilization and its discontents.

Screen-Time Granted.

(December 23, 2012)