During the first week of January I got two additions to my family for a week. My nephews, Joshua and Zachary, came to stay with us while their parents celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary in Hawaii. They didn't have school (They got 3 weeks off for Christmas Break and their older brother, Daniel, went on a 12th grade trip to London.)
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| Shopped for Legos and video games. |
I learned a lot about boys while they were here. You may remember that I had Zachy for a week last year but adding another boy, especially an older brother, changed the experience significantly. For those who have boys, please humor me and bear with my 'discoveries'.
1. Boys (at least from the ages of 11 - 14) LOVE to play computer games.
It's the first thing they do when they wake up and last thing they do before going to bed.
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| First thing in the morning and still in their pjs |
Seriously they are obsessed with it. They each brought a laptop. The last time Zachy was here he was only allowed to bring his DS. That limited his playing time plus he interacted with the girls more so when his DS was out of battery power or the game was finished. Not with the laptop. It was endless. Since the girls had school and I had to work, I left them home alone the majority of the time. It was only into day 2 or 3 that I realized they were skyping friends through their computers. I was wondering who they were talking to when only one was in the room. Apparently my sister says this is a common occurance at their house.
1.5 Because they love to play computer games, our internet was S-L-O-W!! Boy was it slow and I couldn't figure out why for the longest time! My brother-in-law calls them 'internet hogs'.
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| Zachy says it was so exhilarating playing with the new toy! |
They did take a break to play with the girls though. Hannah got a new bow and arrow set so they took turns shooting their stuffed animals on the upstairs ledge.
2. Boys are messy.
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| These are all clean clothes! |
My sister packed 7 full days worth of clothing for each boy. They had 7 sets of pj's, 7 pairs of pants, etc. and they wore everything for one day only. I did a TON of laundry for them. After I folded it nicely for them, I placed it on their bed for them to put away into their luggage. My vision of 'putting it away' did not match theirs.
3. Boys are picky eaters.
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| Everyone was done eating except Zachy. Still working on his green beans. 'Nasty tasting' he says. |
Ok.. that is not entirely true. Just my Zachy is a picky eater. His common food items can be counted in two hands. Our goal for him that week was to try something new each day, preferably a vegetable item. Boy was he resistant! A very-strong-willed-stubborn-boy, my sister says .. but he does it with a smile.
Food items he ate were:
- 11 pieces of cooked carrot from Chinese soup (11 because that's how old he is)
- green beans with bacon (he so hated this.. almost gagged when eating 2 tiny pieces)
- garlic onion flavored pistachio nuts (this was new...he loved these!)
- stir fried napa cabbage (this was also new...he actually ate a few pieces and didn't gag)
3. Boys can be very helpful.
My sister told me to put the boys to work since they are literally just playing all day long. So each child, including the girls, took turns washing the dishes. One person would wash and another would rinse.
Joshua was first and he had to wash. And that literally is what he would do. He'll wash and leave all the soapy dishes in the sink.
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| Joshua diligently washing.. and that's all he did.. just wash. |
When Zachary washed, Matthew noticed that the dishes were still dirty when it was passed to him to get rinsed. So he switched places with Zachy.
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| Zachy washing.. or at least he tried to wash. |
But Zachy kept splashing the floor with the water when he rinsed. That's okay. I got my floor cleaned too!
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| Zachy wiping up my floor without us asking. |
I realized that the boys aren't used to washing and rinsing since they use a dishwasher back home. Unfortunately our dishwasher is broken because we rarely use it.
They also vacuumed my whole house and raked my leaves in the backyard.
4. Boys are early risers and are loud.
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| Kids gathering for devotionals. |
They slept in our office/guest room which is right next to my bedroom. Seven AM on the dot the computer goes on and they are talking away to each other and to their friends. It doesn't matter if it's a weekday or weekend or if they stayed up late the night before. (Matthew kept them up one night until 12:30am, which their parents would never allow, just so they can sleep in the next night. NOPE.. didn't happen.)
My family are late risers. very late.. like Emily and I could sleep until lunchtime. Actually Emily's latest waking up was 2pm. AND when my girls wake up they would quietly entertain themselves. You don't even know they were awake. We are a quiet household.
Not these boys. They were loud! I could hear them clearly through our wall! Every night Matthew would have devotions and prayer with them and the girls before bedtime, and they would be laughing and talking very loudly the whole entire time. At least they're enjoying their devotional time with God!
5. Boys can self entertain.
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| Boys in the way back watching the KHA boys basketball game with Matthew and Emily. |
Yep.. that good ol' Nintendo DS! Emily had two basketball games that week so on those days I dragged the boys with me to school while I taught, and through the girls and boys basketball games since I was scorekeeper for both teams. We would leave the house at 1pm and not get home until after 6pm. And they never complained. And they actually watched their cousin play basketball.. that is after their DS' battery died.
6. Boys like crab.
Well at least these two do. On their last night with us, my brother and his wife joined us for dinner at Ray's Crab Shack to eat crab! Both boys shared one whole crab.
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| Crab is good! |
They were so looking forward to this evening. We had a great time!
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| Matthew had a whole crab to himself; I had shrimp and Hannah had garlic noodles. |
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| My brother, Park and Hilda shared shrimp and crab. |
And because this place is 'eat with your hands', they got to play with their food.
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| Hannah made a snowman out of rice, and french fries. |
Afterwards.. they self-entertained again.
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| Zachy on his DS. |
Never a dull moment with family!
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| So full! |
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| But there is always room for dessert! Menchies yogurt! |
It was nice having the boys over to spend time with their cousins. And I now understand why God gave me girls!
