The real fun is just beginning

i have three boys, aged 12-16. I never wished i had girls instead of boys. In fact, i consider myself very fortunate to have three sons. But, ...

Teen-aged boys are not the same as little boys. These kids like that activity called parkour. Basically what it is, is you take a physical stunt, like leaping from one precarious point to another, determine what your farthest successful jump would be, and then find a situation where the distance you need to jump is about 4 inches further. And you have to do it high up enough so that if you didn't quite make it, at least one bone will break when you hit the ground. (Or at least that's what it looks like to me, the mother.)

Or how about this fun activity that one of my boys did the other night: eat a slice of habanero pepper, just to see how hot a famously hot hot pepper is... Perhaps it is just as well that i didn't think to grab my camera and photograph the result. But a few words will fill in that missing picture for you: all fours, saliva streaming from nose and mouth, screaming. It only lasted for fifteen or twenty minutes and then it was mercifully over. And a few days later, when asked if he would ever do it again, i discovered that that sort of agony has a price. And that price is somewhere between $30 and $40. Boys. Gotta love 'em.