On Being Boy

What is it about boys that makes them want to take risks? When we have little girls over to our house, they rarely play on the playset in the same ways the boys do. To the boys, the treehouse is a mountain to be explored, climbed and conquered in every way. To girls, it is a house, a fort, a home, a cave, a shelter, a car, a space to be tamed and domesticated with chalk drawings, but rarely the source of risk. I thought about trying to keep the boys from climbing up onto the rails for a while, but I knew it would be a long, painful battle for both of us that would probably result in them not wanting to play in the thing at all, so here they are, doing what they do best, taking risks to conquer the world.

Our Little Creative Team

The boys were quiet- eerily quiet this afternoon in the backyard while I was cooking dinner. I kept peaking out at them to make sure they hadn't tied each other up, and they were all contentedly playing in the "clubhouse." I couldn't imagine what was keeping all three of them so occupied, but I wasn't about to interrupt.

Curiosity finally got the best of me though and I'm glad I went out to check it out. Here's the story.


"Mommy, we were eating our snacks in the clubhouse and we saw a ladybug climbing next to the slide." See below.















"So me and Micah decided to build a trap for the bug. We're using our snacks to make the bug climb into the trap. Mommy, what's that called?"

"What's what called?"

"You know, the stuff you use to get something to come into your trap."

"The bait?"

"Yeah the bait."

"See it works like this." At which point Elijah proceeded to show me how the toy wooden ironing board leg he had propped up on the wall would swing back and forth to apparently catapult any offending bugs out of the clubhouse.

They were using Rice Krispies and bread crumbs for bait. Elijah had originally come inside to get a heal of bread to feed the birds and Rice Krispies to feed himself, but apparently both made better bug food except that....

What was Isaiah doing through all of this?...

Eating the bait of course!