Club Meeting

The boys have been continuing their "Hooligans Anonymous" meetings with a wide range of activities and club rituals. The meetings generally start out with complete silence that indicates a plan is in the works. The silence is followed by a faint rustling that can vaguely be heard from another room. Directly after the rustling, there generally comes a BANG or a CRASH. Then there will be muffled giggling or painful screaming...depending on the success of the activity. (There could also be a cop at the door, as was the case after Kai's club initiation.)

Following the crash are frantic footsteps and loud shouts of, "WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE YOU BOYS DOING?"

Occasionally the club meetings come out of the shadows and into the light of day where I can participate and record the minutes. I like those meetings much better than the secret ones that plot the downfall of my patience, cleanliness of our home or safety of its members.

Yesterday, the club took advantage of the warm Indian Summer day and decided to do some team building exercises.
They soon tired of all that teamwork when they discovered that one member was getting all the perks with none of the work.



So they abandoned him.


To win back favor with the ranking club members, Kai reminded them that he "accidentally" fell on an unopened bag of tortilla chips that was waiting to be put away after our trip to the store.

In light of this new information, it was voted on unanimously to re-instate Kai in good standing to the club. They had to do a special ceremony to make it official.

I can't claim to always know what is going on in their complex little brains. Sometimes the choices they make, or don't make, baffle me to no end and make me want to scream, "Hello!!! It isn't rocket science....just do what I say and your life will be great!"

And then I look into the future and see them making difficult choices that could drastically alter their course in life, and I'm glad that, for the time being, I'm only dealing with their "choice" to not make their bed or whether or not to eat that piece of candy they found on the floor of the grocery store. (Well, with the whole swine flu pandemic being a national state of emergency and all, that piece of candy on the floor seems a whole lot more ominous.)

I'm glad they have each other. I'm not always going to be as "cool" as I am now....at least in their eyes. When they can't come to me they've got a brother or two from the Hooligan's Anonymous Club that would surely give good advice when the weight of a decision seems too heavy to carry on their own.

Try as I might to disband this club, or at least be included in all disaster-making decisions, I secretly don't want it to stop. They need each other. And when it seems like it is them against the world they won't feel lonely. They'll always have a brother....or two.