Ballgames

I've just been outside with my boys, getting the jiggles out. Ever since our eldest son was very young, we've figured that boys are pretty much like various furry animals. They need to be fed and exercised regularly. Some people take this kind of observation the wrong way. However, it is just the best formula for sanity that we've found in our house. So, when others can be found out walking their dogs, we're out exercising our children :-) Some days this is a challenge - not only the rainy days, but the days, like today, which seem to hover between rain and just cloud. The parks are too wet to play in, but it is not actually raining. We are so thankful to live on a quiet sealed street, so that there is hope when the ground is too wet. Even so, our boys are very energetic and there is a limit to what you can actually do on a narrow street that will keep them busy. Today I drew on my fading memories of ball games from my school years - tunnel ball, captain ball etc. I cannot even remember the names or the rules of most the rest of the games. I do have vivid memories of inter house ball games and all the practising we did beforehand and even one or two inter school ball games meets. Not that I was that good at the ball bit (even though the ball was big), I did have the advantage in being pretty speedy - in about the top four or five girls in my grade, as well as having considerable enthusiasm for competitive sport. Anyway, with four of us out there today, we had a go as making up rules for some simple ball games and even our youngest enjoyed it. With an age span of six years, it is hard to find sporty activities that involves them with sufficient challenge for the eldest and not too much defeat for the youngest! It worked fairly well for a little while this morning. So the seemingly pointless highschool ball games have had a point at last - to entertain my kids! Yah!