8 years

You would think that at 8 yrs. old it would be a whole new era for your child and a fresh start for the 2 of you. This is the age of baptism or for you zodiac freaks, the Age of Aquarius. I’d do all I could to prepare my future missionary for the big day. I tell my children that baptism is a rebirth for them and all they have done is wiped away. I explain that their souls are like blackboards and when they go down into the waters of baptism and come up they are essentially erasing all the bad things. You would think that this would be a relief for them but NO, they see it as being able to scribble anew.
My sons loved to play rough. They’d grab anything that looked like a sword to us. If they could pick it up and swing it then it was good enough to be a sword. At times they would dismantle the furniture just to use the legs, sometimes they’d use dolls, bats, 2x4’s, fireplace pokers, and of course the cat. This did not make the cat happy and she’d protest. Unfortunately she had to go to a kitty rest home from boyhood trauma. I heard she was responding well to treatment.
My boys loved pets, but out of sympathy and respect for the animal kingdom we had to finally tell them no. So being the creative little men that they were they would find their own pets. It could be a mouse, a rat, a leaf, a rock or even a slug. If they could hold it they loved it. I don’t know how I survived boys. To this day I am not sure I did. So many things they did gave men the willies. I learned real quick to always keep a bottle of Pepto Bismal close by.
It is also at this age that "I’m bored" comes into play. It didn’t matter whether my son had been playing all day and was able to go several places, if he had 5 minutes of doing nothing he would yell, "I’m bored!" I hated it; I would have loved to have 5 minutes to even feel bored. I could threaten him with work or some other growth promoting activity and that would put an end to his boredom. By magic he’d remember he already had something to do such as watching a spot on the wall.
Water fights during the summer was always so much fun around our house. Indoors it would become a swimming pool, if we had to bring the hose inside to pay someone back, then by golly that is exactly what we did. We finally had to resort to balloons in order for us to save the house from being water logged. My children ever so snoopy found some funny looking, individually wrapped balloons in my husbands and my bedroom and decided these would make splendid ammunition. I didn’t realize how much condoms could hold but I was truly amazed. The only problem for them was that one person could not carry it alone without dropping it. I saw my children carrying this huge, HUGE, HUGE water balloon getting ready to throw it on us. I realized what it was just as they were going to heave this thing. All of a sudden it busted……….all over them. I never thought it was possible to see a tsunami in my front room but…… Whoomp there it is! Anyway they were upset and I laughed. After that I’d sing "Onward Trojan Soldiers" to them at night.