Little people

I can tell what summer will be like when we are in town. I have a house full of children running and playing. Rule is that when Tom is home they can't play at our house. I am borrowing a friend's dog for the week. She is on a trip so her dog has come to play with mine. They are good friends and have played before. Everyone has playmates today, the children and the dog.


I love having the young ones over. They are so cute. My boys know they have to play age appropriate games around the young ones. No violence, no Halo, Nascar makes the cut and so does Mario Party.


The two year old finds me on my computer, the dogs at my feet. He wants the dogs to come play. The dogs have realized I am safe zone. He asks why they wont come with him. I tell him they like the quiet of my special room. The sun comes in the window and they bask in the warmth. he makes a comment that he thinks "she" does want to come, I just have to bring her. I tell the child the dogs are both boy dogs.



"Why?" he asks.



Why are they boys? What to say. I ask, "why are you a boy? "

" Because my brother is a boy."

" What happens if you had been a girl?"

"That's silly, my mom is a girl!"

He asks again "Why are they boys?" full circle. Not my child. I am not going to get into the details with someone else's child, a 2 year old at that, but the conversation makes me smile.

"They just are." I say.

"Oh".That satisfies for the moment. He wonders off. I love having small children around. He leaves the room without the dogs. The dogs sleep on under my feet, protected for the moment.

Friends tell me my boys should play with older children their own age. They do. We have another neighbor boy that comes over and plays hours of Halo on the x-box with my boys. I prefer the days when the little ones are in the house and all the kids have to play nicer games. They play with army men, making forts, and monster bionicles they invent themselves. They use their own imaginations to have wonderful adventures including everyone.

There is a drawback. Plugged into the TV there is no mess. On little people play days, I have little pieces of bionicle all over the house. The play room is a disaster of dumped out toy boxes. But the joy I hear in the shrieks of glee is worth the mess. It is their play game, not spoon fed to them through a machine. It is not viewing violence on TV.

Boys will be boys. They will make guns with sticks and play war. But it is just in their minds and their own thoughts. It is not something they see with the real eye over and over again like the war games on the computer. I'll put up with the mess, and the dogs know to hide under my feet so they don't become targets.