The Exercise

For the last two days, the kids have been building something in the back yard. They have been tying bands, ropes, hula hoops, stuffed animals and really anything else they can find on these two trees. Yesterday, Elizabeth and Parker spent at least an hour out there discussing the situation, adding to it, taking stuff away, and generally admiring their work. Every so often they would ask me to untie something or come look, but mostly they just worked together to figure it out. They called it their "exercise" probably because they were using one of my elastic work out bands that I have told them is for "exercise".

I was so damn pleased with the whole thing. With the fact that they were negotiating things on their own. That they were building something out of nothing. That they were being creative. And that they were having fun. I kept thinking how nice it was to have kids that got along.

But when a third kid (Miranda on this day, but Elizabeth the next when Miranda and Parker were adding to it) got in the mix, the whole thing went to shit. Grabbing, kicking, fighting, yelling. Parker must have come to get me 10 times in as many minutes to tell me that Miranda threw something at him or Elizabeth kicked him. (I was pleased he was doing this rather than hitting them back, but man it got old.) I got sick of saying, "Why did she kick you? Did you tell her you don't like to be kicked. Elizabeth...did you kick him? No? Really?" etc, etc, etc

I kept thinking that Elizabeth was the main problem causer and instigator, but then I recall how nicely she and Parker played for so long the first day and just give up trying to figure it out.