::Serendipity::

Striking Fear in the Hearts of Mothers Everywhere ________________________________________________________________

Maybe it's just me, the mother of 3 girls (15, 10, 9) and 2 boys (7, 2), but nothing strikes fear in my heart faster than my 7 year old son saying, "I'm bored." I heard that a lot today.

Lately, I've been getting up in the morning with Timmy, and we've played Wii together. He comes to snuggle with me after Daddy goes to work and patiently waits while whispering in my ear every five minutes, "What time is it?" until 8AM rolls around. I guess that wasn't very patient, but for Timmy, it really is. Then he says he really wants to Wii with me. How can I resist that? So we Wii. I let him have an hour of Wii time a day, and if he doesn't flip out when it's time to stop, sometimes I'll give him another half hour. Yes, I'm aware I'm a soft touch, thanks for noticing. Heh. So he had his Wii time. We had a little school time. Lunch. He cleaned his room. He had his computer time. Snack time. He said he was bored. I told him to play with his Lego's. He didn't want to. He asked for a snack. I told him he could have an apple, a banana or an orange. All he wanted was ice cream. He said he was bored again. We played a game. He wanted a snack. He refused an apple, a banana or an orange and begged for just a spoonful of ice cream. I held firm. He said all that would cure his boredom was Wii. I still held firm. He didn't even want to read his Garfield books. I thought he might be delirious! He was literally bouncing off the walls, and rolling on the floor. When he wasn't moaning that he was bored! I gave him a bowl of soapy water and a sponge and had him clean the walls. Then he was bored again.

Then he and Emily went at it. He pushed every one of her buttons he knew of. He took her favorite stuffed pig that she brings almost everywhere and proceeded to bash it against the wall. You would have thought she was a banshee on the warpath the way she went after her brother, and he giggled his way through it. He'd wait awhile, and push another button. She'd run after him again. They'd wrestle around and he'd laugh, she'd yell in frustration and all was fine for about fifteen minutes and it would start all over again. Now I know they both really enjoy this. She loves having an excuse to give him what for and he loves the attention. It was the result of both of them being bored. Mostly Timmy. Thankfully, it never got out of hand. No bumps or bruises or band aids were needed.

All this week it has been warm and nice outside, in the 20-30 degree range. So warm that the snow was wet enough to build forts. I let them take a thermos outside with hot chocolate and Riley and I didn't see them for over an hour, almost two. Today it was -24 and no one was going out to play. Holy moly, did it show. He needed to get out and get rid of some of that excess boy energy that was driving us all nuts. Maybe I should have just let him Wii and bounce his energy out that way. Let him box and tennis and Mario Party 8 his wiggles out. Argh!

Tomorrow, if he says, "I'm bored," I'm outta here!

posted by Terri at 1/26/2008 02:00:00 AM >1 comments

1 Comments:

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