Today Camera Girl put me in charge of two of my grandsons one nine and one twelve, for one hour.\u00a0 She had fed them twice and occupied them all morning with games and movies.\u00a0 She just needed enough time to start up her dinner and clean up after their plates and bowls.\u00a0 So, I said, \u201cSure, no problem, we\u2019ll go shoot some pool.\u201d<\/p>\n
So down to the first floor and the pool table.\u00a0 After they fought for five minutes about who would break, we began the game.\u00a0 But apparently watching each other (and me) take our turns was too infinitely boring.\u00a0 I attribute this time dilation to the bowls of ice cream they had just inhaled.\u00a0 Glucose, sucrose, lactose and galactose were coursing through their blood streams at concentrations that reduced their attention spans to milliseconds at most.<\/p>\n
So, they started wandering around looking for something to fiddle with.\u00a0 First, they found the lat-machine.\u00a0 I only had a hundred pounds on the cable but neither of them weighs close to that much.\u00a0 So, I see them suspending themselves from the bar.\u00a0 And then I notice they\u2019re swinging from it and I have to step in, \u201cHey, hey cut that out you\u2019re gonna get hurt!\u201d\u00a0 Finally, they listen and move on to the weight bench so I have to start yelling again.\u00a0 That\u2019s all I need is for one of them dropping the bar on a foot or something.<\/p>\n
So, we compromise and they start taking turns on the rowing machine.\u00a0 At first, they\u2019re still taking a turn at the pool table but soon enough they\u2019re just cycling back and forth between them doing a couple of hundred meters each on the machine.\u00a0 Having been completely abandoned at this point I cleared the table and came over to where they were rowing and watched as they amused themselves with something that I considered tedious exercise.<\/p>\n
Mercifully, after a half hour, they wore off their sugar high and we went back for another game of pool before starting back upstairs.\u00a0 With twenty minutes left I convinced them to take a walk around the yard.\u00a0 They put on their rain boots and we walked around in the soggy air.\u00a0 It was gray and humid but walking is always good therapy for kids.\u00a0 It engages their muscles and makes them receptive to speech.\u00a0 I asked them about their plans for the summer.\u00a0 They had none.\u00a0 I asked them what they were doing tomorrow.\u00a0 They said swimming in my pool.\u00a0 This was news!\u00a0 I said, \u201cOkay, let\u2019s just check with your mom.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then they found a small rubber ball and began an impromptu game of soccer.\u00a0 It quickly became animated and eventually spirited (violent and combative).\u00a0 Then the ball ended up in the pond (swamp) and that was that.\u00a0 By that point, Camera Girl came looking for us.\u00a0 My hour was up.\u00a0 I had fulfilled my responsibility honorably and she released me from bondage.\u00a0 Now they would spend another two hours watching a movie about dragons and warriors and then head home for dinner.<\/p>\n
But the movie ended about a half hour earlier than their departure time so they began to get antsy.\u00a0 Camera Girl was trying to stop them from playing soccer in the living room so I tried an experiment.\u00a0 I turned on the movie \u201cThem!\u201d\u00a0 Well, it was like hypnotism.\u00a0 As soon as the black and white image of the New Mexican desert appeared on the screen, they became catatonic.\u00a0 They sat down and didn\u2019t make a sound.\u00a0 I knew there wasn\u2019t enough time to reach the good stuff so I advanced the DVD to the first ant attack.\u00a0 Adolescent boys and giant ants.\u00a0 Magic.<\/p>\n
It is remarkable how much mental energy is expended herding adolescent boys.\u00a0 They have an amazing propensity for changing gears and battling each other.\u00a0 But herd them we must.\u00a0 Letting them get bored is a big mistake.\u00a0 Their ability to get into trouble is remarkable.\u00a0 Without supervision and organized activity, the number of broken windows and smashed electronic equipment would become prohibitively expensive.<\/p>\n
On the drive home, we spent the time discussing whether giant carpenter ants were less deadly than giant army ants or giant bullet ants.\u00a0 Bullet ants won.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today Camera Girl put me in charge of two of my grandsons one nine and one twelve, for one hour.\u00a0 She had fed them twice<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3366,1263,2860],"tags":[2093],"class_list":["post-33597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-life-in-dunwich","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","category-reclaiming-the-family","tag-reclaiming-the-family"],"yoast_head":"\n