1/18/2015

No Good Deed

So the eldest boy got a set of jacks, complete with super bouncy ball, from the treasure chest at Sunday school today. (I won't get into the whole treasure chest thing beyond saying that while I admire the idea that you can motivate kids to bring their Bibles to church with external awards, maybe, just maybe, you should think about the crap you're giving them. Cause every time he comes home with another parachuting guy who I will inevitably have to spend roughly sixteen hours fixing before the younger boy finally and inexplicably ruins it (to the great, dramatic tears of the eldest) I consider hiding his Bible and rushing him out the door before we have time to look for it.)

So. Jacks. Fine. Jacks are fun. I loved Jacks as a kid.

However, back in my day (when dinosaurs roamed the earth, apparently, and parents were expected to, I don't know, be responsible and watch their children) jacks were roughly the size of a nickel if you were to make it into a 3-d globe. A good size - small enough to be challenging during onesies and doable, but again tricky, all the way up to tensies.

Anyway, I was showing the boy how to play and was taken aback by the fact that these jacks, in addition to not being metal (they're some kind of weird gummy texture that honestly makes me think they should be edible), they're individually the size of a half-dollar coin spun into a 3-d globe. Honestly. If you think about the size of a kid's hand and expect them to be able to scoop up more than one of these things at a time plus catch a ball? You're nuts.

(My rules, at least, require that you do the bounce/scoop/catch all with the same hand. Maybe you're allowed to use two hands now?)

Regardless, the boy just likes the bouncy ball. And really, why wouldn't you? So he's bouncing the ball in the kitchen and I ask him maybe five times to go somewhere else because it's going to get away from him and roll under the oven. Oh, no. He won't let it get away from-- oops.

Yeah, right under the oven.

So I fish at it with a long spoon. He's wailing at the loss of his brand new ball. I say, "Go get me the broom please."

He comes back with the broom and while I'm lying prone on the floor trying to swivel the broom handle just so to nudge the ball forward (question: why do things roll freely and easily to the back of the oven but you can't scoot them forward to save your life?) I whack myself squarely on the bridge of the nose with the broom handle.

I don't know as I've ever seriously seen stars before. But I did today.

Three hours later, my head is still splitting, my nose aches, and if I see that ball or the jacks again, I'm liable to toss them out.

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