land of play

I live with 3 boys, though sometimes it feels like more, especially when Keel, Oliver, Gonzalo and Jeshuah are congregated by my front stoop.   Occasionally, Robert, Mahmoud and Ahmed will stop by. Sometimes, Luke and Seth and Evan are hanging out with us.

My  boys are fascinating. This is what they like to do:  Find and then fight over sticks, sharpen said sticks by rubbing against pavement. Call sticks "fishing poles", "guns" or "swords", but rarely "sticks". Climb crabapple trees and call them hideouts. Throw toys onto rooftops. Throw fistfuls of  dusty dirt into air and watch with fascination as it falls all around and into eyes and face, repeat. Punt soccer balls. (I wasn't sure if that was punt or bundt but Keel and Henry just enlightened me. It figures that I would confuse a kind of cake with an athletic maneuver.) Sit under picnic table "houses" and  zoom in between the sheets on the line. Throw acorns at squirrels. Collect acorns and talk mother into tasting the "meat" (Henry's word) inside, FYI green acorns are more bitter than brown. Have competitions over length, width and opacity of tire marks, made by skidding to a stop on bicycle. Compare height of bike seat with that of friends. Eat anything edible found outside, including but not limited to: mint, nasturtiums (leaves, flowers and stem), lovage, dill, clover, acorns, onion grass...  Look under heavy rocks for worms. Find  "treasures" or "clues", which are often "trash" to a boring grown up like me. 

Now I know girls do the same things, but whether it is culturally learned or genetic, Henry is more likely to do certain things with his  boys than his girl buddies.  For instance, right now Henry is  happily playing house with Marium. Henry and Keel never play house together  but they do lob things at tree tops and wrestle. On the other hand, Marium has been known to race with the boys and Rasha loves to climb trees with Henry. 

Whatever it is they are doing. They are doing it long enough let me occasionally blog about it. For that I am thankful.