This past weekend, we enjoyed getting to spend some time with our nephew and niece from Northwest Arkansas. Dexter and Alex stayed with us from Thursday to Sunday evening, much to the delight of our own children. Our kids love their cousins and have never gotten to spend this much time with them, so we were all glad to have their company for a few days.
Now, that being said, our house is quite small, and when you go from three kids to five kids, it presents a bit of a challenge. But beyond that, there are certain considerations that must be taken into account when you have a teen and pre-teen in the house. They just don’t operate the same way as the little ones.
I’m not saying that they’re any harder to deal with, by any means. Dexter, for example, is very easy to entertain if you are willing to give up your TV and gaming system. Ever the scientific minded one, this young man religiously follows Newton’s First Law of Motion, which for our purposes states: Every object in a state of rest (in front of the playstation) will remain at rest (in front of the playstation) unless acted upon by an outside force (like a baseball bat…or hunger pains).
This brings me to another point…food. Did you know that the average teen/pre-teen, in a single day, can consume twice their body weight in chocolate chip or blueberry muffins? I personally saw it happen and was amazed. My wife looked at me on Sunday morning and said, “We’ve got to go to the store and get some more food, we’re out of stuff to fix.” And so, on my way back through town that day I stopped at Wal-Mart and resupplied. Upon reaching home, I brought the first bags of groceries in and went back to the truck for the others. When I returned to the kitchen, Dex and Alex had annihilated the first load and were chewing on the empty plastic bags I had used to haul them in. I admit that I may be exaggerating to an extent, but hold on to that mental picture because it’s not way too far off.
Though they share a penchant for ravenous appetites, pre-teen girls differ from teenage boys in most every other way. You can’t just stick them down in front of the playstation and expect them to be content. No, they often suffer from an affliction known as Chronic Boredom. As you can imagine, this condition was only compounded by the fact that we’ve had such foul weather. And in a house that has been dominated by boys for the last five years, there are just not a whole lot of ‘girly’ things around. Thankfully we have many art supplies and she often contented herself to drawing pictures. She’s very talented. However, I began to notice that most drawings bore a frightening resemblance to the layout of our house, and more specifically ways that a person could escape our house and get out into the world at large. Good thing her mother picked her up on Sunday.
Overall, we had a lot of fun with them. We managed to pull a lot of board games out of the closet and dust them off, and though no one was keeping track, I don’t think Alex won a single time. Still, a good time was had by all, and they were missed when they left.
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