Born to be Wild

I'd like to devote my first attempt at the blogging world to my two balls of energy, my boys. I've often heard people say that children take after their parents, especially the primary caregiver since they spend the most time with that parent. This being said, I can tell you that my boys, ages 7 years and 3 1/2 years, are not imitating me when they jump off the furniture, run screaming through the house, disrobe the minute they step foot inside (and often while outdoors even if the mood strikes), urinate outside despite the fact we have three working bathrooms, make bodily noises and insist on wrestling each other every other second. There has to be an inate drive for males to exhibit such "primitive" behavior. I try really hard to instill good manners in them, which is why they will at least say "excuse me" after belching or otherwise releasing gas (while laughing hysterically) or yell "watch out Mommy" as one hurdles the other one toward me at lightening speed. I try to engage them in calm activities like arts and crafts time, reading and nature walks, and while I have to say they enjoy these activities momentarily, the action always returns to some type of physical display of testosterone. Just yesterday, they made a wrestling ring out of their 8' x 8" bounce around that left our 3 1/2 year old with a nosebleed, a scraped back and a bump on his head. Oh, that's nothing - you should have seen our 7 year old!

We've made emergency trips to the doctor on more than one occasion, already had stitches and exhausted our supplies of band-aids. I have at least one first aid kit on each floor in the house, one in my purse and one in my car. My heart stops several hundred times a day as they test their physical limits. Short of restraining them in gurney jackets though, I have to just try to limit their outlandish antics and pray that their baby sister isn't getting any ideas from watching them as intently as she does.