boys will be boys

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A friend brought her 7 year old boy over to play with my 7 year old boy while she and her husband went to a peaceful dinner.  The boys are a lot alike; both are only children (Jed in basic terms, since he's so much younger than his sisters who are only here part of the time).  They're used to playing by themselves, used to being around adults (hence great vocabularies on them both) and used to having no one to rough house with.  As such, they're roughhousing.  Within minutes of meeting one another they had open the toy weapons tub and were chasing each other through the house.  Since that time they've made fart jokes, wrestled, chased each other, shot each other, stabbed each other, fought and rolled around over the bean bag chair, run back and forth, tormented the dog and chased some more.  I'm pretty worried that, in the words of my mother, "someone is gonna end up crying."  But nothing is working to get them to stop. So maybe I need to not worry.  I came into the kitchen to try and calm the dog and get some schoolwork done, but there's no way either thing is going to happen.  I put in a funny old Disney movie; worked for about 1 minute.  I gave them food; worked for about one minute.  I gave them popcorn; worked for maybe 2 minutes.  I suggested they lay out a battle with toy planes, and soldiers.  They liked that idea for about 3 minutes and are back to shooting and chasing and hollering at each other.

My fear is that when my friend and her husband come to retrieve their son, he's going to have one eye or a bandaged head.  My other fear is that my son will teach him a bad word or two.  They just asked for tape to hang a target on the wall and Jed said he drew an "inappropriate picture."  When I asked him to produce it, it was a heart with the words, "I love Emma D."    Whew.  I was pretty worried for a minute, since they were saying they were going to shoot each other's testicles a few minutes ago.

So is it just boys and I need to loosen up?  Maybe I just need a bigger house so I can send them downstairs and sit quietly in blissful ignorance.  Either way, I may need a glass of wine when this is all over and no one is hurt or permanently scarred. 

Comments

Lori L said…
So how did it turn out? and blood or tears?
February 13, 2011 at 7:31 AM
Missy said…
You need a basement. Worked for my mom with 5 girls. :)
February 13, 2011 at 3:31 PM
Melanie said…
No blood, no tears, they had a blast. I was totally bushed. I'm all over the basement idea - which would require a new house, unfortunately.
February 13, 2011 at 8:09 PM
Sheila said…
That gave me a good laugh, I think a boy would turn my world upside down!
February 16, 2011 at 11:23 AM
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