Boxing Day

It is often said that toys are unnecessary to children, that they will play with a cardboard box as animatedly as they would with the latest, greatest store-bought toy.

They are right.

The new toys that Graham received for his birthday were considered "new" for all of about 25 minutes before Cael's eye began to wander around the house, looking for something new to systematically destroy.

I considered pulling out the big bag of plastic blocks, but the last time the boys erected a "boat train", it was demolished with such force that Oscar was pelted with a flying yellow block that struck him square in the eye.  The dog turned and sped out of there, but not before being pegged directly in the butt.  So... no blocks.

Cael asked if I would assemble his GeoTrax train set, but experience has taught me that a mere five minutes after I've reconstructed the bridge they they demolished during its last use, it will be stomped on, driven over or, once again, chucked at the dog's rear end.  So... no train set.

My options were running out.  I knew that I had a bead-melting craft project waiting in the wings for such a day, and since the boys had not played with it before, there was no past precedent to fear.  But as soon as I grabbed the box of beads and headed toward the table, Graham offered, "I'm gonna eat those beads, Mommy!" and I made an about-face back to the craft cabinet.  So... no bead. 

Oscar should probably be relieved.

Desperation set in.  I wandered around the basement storage room looking for anything that they hadn't seen in awhile to occupy their time, but managed only to trip over what seemed like dozens of empty cardboard boxes that I'd been saving for gift-wrapping at Christmas time.  I tried to move one and only managed to knock the others over before I had a thought.

"Who wants to play with JUMBO blocks!?"  I shouted.

"Me!  I do!  Yeah, let's do it!"

Advertising really is key.

So we spent the next two hours stacking the boxes, knocking them over, driving them around like cars and building cities.

Cael found that his strength was in wearing the boxes and morphing into some robot-human hybrid superhero whose power, as far as I can tell, was in passing really potent gas and walking into walls.

Graham did what he has done best lately and took offense to everything anyone did, said or thought.

So even though the blocks, the train set and the craft project were unsuccessful, the day was salvaged by a good old cardboard box. 

Except for Oscar, who took a few in the backside for good measure.  No day is perfect.