Dumb Boys

Well, not a lot happened this week. Scott and I have been working, Joshua went to school 3 mornings and played and talked and made a wreck of the house the rest of the time. He is starting to get a bit of a cold, I hope it passes quickly.

Today, the weather was beautiful. Joshua and I went to the park so he could play with someone other than me and I not have to play. Soccer season has started so the fields were full and so was the playground, which is the destination of choice for future soccer stars in between games and siblings of same.

Joshua was having fun climbing and sliding and watching the "older boys" as he likes to call any boy older than him. He is just fascinated by older boys. At times, I don't think he realizes he isn't an older boy and thinks he can do everything they do. He had reached the bottom of the slide but had not yet gotten out when, down came two "older boys" at the same time, on their stomaches, head first, arms straight out like Superman, and bam! they ran right into Joshua, bumping him out of the slide, onto the mulch, and he hit the slide with his head. It wasn't an on purpose thing, Joshua was moving too slow and the "older boys" were moving too fast, accidents happen. Joshua runs to me crying, sits on my lap, and wants to know why the boys pushed him. It was hard getting him to realize that it was an accident, I still don't think he understands because he kept asking why the boys were mean to him. But, he didn't want to leave, he wanted to stay and play.

Once again, Joshua was having fun climbing and sliding and watching a different group of older boys. He was climbing up a ladder and, next thing I know, he is running to me crying and sits on my lap. The two boys came over to see if he was ok and said they were sorry if he was hurt. I saw Joshua going up the ladder, I saw the two boys at the top of the play structure, I figured Joshua was going up, one of the boys didn't see him and started to go down and bam!, accidents happen. Once again, I have the task of getting him to realize it was an accident. So, here I am comforting Joshua and I can see the boys playing. Two were on top of the play structure again and a third was climbing up the ladder. One of the boys stuck his butt in the hole so that the friend climbing the ladder had to "head butt" him to get up. Suddenly I realize that is what happened to Joshua. I don't think the boy meant to stick his butt on Joshua's head, I think he meant to stick his butt on his friend's head, but it was Joshua on the ladder and not the friend. Joshua said "See! That's what he did to me! He hit me with his butt!" I asked Joshua if he wanted to leave but he wanted to stay and play.

Finally, all the older boys went to the "baby slides" so Joshua and all the other younger kids had the entire big play structure to themselves. He was funny though...he kept running over to tell me that he wasn't going to go to the baby slides, he was going to stay and play on the big boy slides, but then he would run over to the baby slides to see what the older boys were doing and then he would run over and report to me, "Mommy! Why he took his shoes off?", "Mommy! Why he hang upside down?", "Mommy! Why he hit me with his butt?", and on and on and on. I spent most of our time at the park trying to explain to Joshua that they were just older boys doing dumb older boy things.

"Mommy! Why older boys do dumb things?" How in the world do you explain to a 4 year old boy why older boys do dumb things? They are boys, they do dumb things. When you get to be 7 years old, you are gonna do dumb things too because you think they are funny. Heck! You do things now that are dumb and you think they are funny!

Anyway, we finally left the park, got ice cream, and had a wonderful day.