Boys At Play

Even after growing up with two brothers I am still amazed at the physical nature of boys.  It's constant contact of fighting and wrestling, even from the quietest, most sedate of males.  And they don't outgrow it either.  Put two grown men together, long time friends, and their first handshake is a fierce grip threatening to melt into a tumbling pile on the ground right before our eyes.  Brothers are possibly the worst.  They roll and tumble over their mother's livingroom floor, chase each other through the backyard.  I imagine as they age and fall out of shape the running and tumbling will reduce, but I see my brothers, both in their late thirties, with a glint in their eyes of "catch me if you can."

Here is my son, Keith, with my friend's son Tyler, terrorizing our vacation house, Keith displaying his brute strength.  All of the smaller kids were hoisted up and tossed onto couches, no different than when they were frolicking in the ocean just hours earlier.

Picking each other up is the best sort of fun, at least for the boys.  The day Keith could pick up his big sister was a day of triumph.  They each had differing versions, one gloating the other horrified, of how he was able to grab her and threaten to toss her over the railings at school (exactly what a mother wants to hear).  And now Ian, just hair (literally) shorter than his sister, is able to lift her off the ground.

This is not how girls play and this is why mothers stand screeching for their children to pipe down (well, one of many reasons).  We don't understand the inner animal of our male children, the NEED to be physical.