...Continued....

Soooo.... third-grade homework x 2 + boys who would rather be playing SOUNDS worse than it is, I promise.  They were both really good about it.

I had a Goofus and Gallant moment when I opened Ben's agenda and it was...  blank, as usual. I opened Zach's and... he had written everything down... every day... for every class. What the....seriously?

"Ben! Look! HE actually writes in his agenda!!!" (I'm not above using peer pressure to my advantage!) Unfortunately, Ben, was unimpressed, or maybe he was just busy looking for his spelling notebook, which he had not brought home.

They both had to take the same spelling pre-test, so they had a little competition. I got about four words in and Zach stopped me, "Can you use them in sentences?" he asked. HA!  Called out for my laziness by a third grader.  Needless to say, I came up with some goofy sentences for the rest of them. Also, Zach won the spelling test contest handedly. Ben was annoyed.

Homework finished, they headed back downstairs and then, just as I doing a little "I totally rocked that" victory dance, I heard crying.

Went down to find Simon sitting by himself with his head in his hands again.

"What's wrong now?"

"I wanted to play in the moonbounce with everyone, but they keep hurting me."

"I'm sure they don't mean to hurt you. They're just playing rough and having a good time."

"I want to play with them, but I caaaaaaaaan't! Wahhhhh! (Yes, he actually said "wah" This child will win an Oscar one day, mark my words.)

Poor Simon. He's a BIG kid and I think people think he's rougher and tougher than he is. He'd much rather be sitting quietly building with Legos or drawing than rough-housing. He wanted SO badly to be playing with the other boys though, and he kept trying, but it was clear he just couldn't hang.

So, this was a tough call....  Ben was in heaven because for him, the crazier the better. And Zach and Adam were happy too. They were all having a blast jumping and flipping and wrestling.  I couldn't ask them to do something else just because Simon wasn't having fun. So, I decided to just remove Simon from the situation altogether, and he got some extra Minecraft computer time all by himself upstairs with me while I finished making dinner. He was surprisingly okay with this. (I already have a plan for next time... going to have a friend over for Simon... because six boys? Why not? Or maybe drop Simon at his friend's house on the way home from school.)

Oh, where was Jonathan during all this, you ask? Right in the middle of the action, of course! Zach was super cute too because he was really concerned about him. He kept letting me know when he would fall or hurt himself in any way. (he never really got hurt... just a head bump here and there... he seemed to have enough sense to stay away from the major craziness, and was happy just to be basking in the aura of the big boys)

Fast forward to dinner. I had made little pizzas for the boys, but had chicken soup in the crockpot for Tom and me. I called them all up and, Adam announced, in the same way I could totally hear Ben saying at someone else's house, "Something smells WEIRD! Ewwwwww!" HA!

While I got everything on the table, the boys played with the cat, who was sitting by the door waiting to go outside. Ben let him out and Adam was fascinated. "Where will he go? What will he do? When will he be back?"  I explained that he goes out and explores and hunts and he'd be back whenever he felt like it. I turned around and the next thing I knew, Adam had disappeared.

"Uh... hey, Zach? Where'd where did your brother go?

"Oh... he went to go find the cat."

I wasn't quite sure what to do, but I think it's pretty safe to say if you lose someone's child they aren't going to let you watch them ever again.

I opened the back door, and saw Adam wandering across the backyard.
"Hey Adam? Come on back, buddy! The cat goes all the way to the woods! He'll be back later! Come on in and have dinner!!" I felt like Willy Wonka in that scene with the kid who falls into the chocolate river... "No.... don't.... stop...." Again, authoritative voice with other peoples' children, notsomuch my strength.

Thankfully, just as I was going to get my shoes and coat on to chase him down, Zach leapt into action, ran out and brought his brother back. Thank goodness for big brothers.

After that little hiccup, we actually had a really fun dinner. Everyone ate happily and they chattered amongst themselves. It's always fun to listen to kid chatter when friends are over. You never know quite what you're going to hear. In this case, Zach at one point exclaimed, "Holy poop!" which caused Ben and Simon to spit their drinks out laughing. He explained that he actually says that when he WANTS to say something else. Then he asked me if I was old enough to say bad words.

*snort* (I was already seeing a fantastic blog post in this)

"Yes, I am."

"Oh, but you don't say them because of your kids, right?"

"Yeah, mostly. I try not to say them much."

"My daddy says the s-word sometimes. Once he said it and I heard him because I was hiding behind the wall. Do Ben and Simon know that word?"

Adam joined in the conversation, "*I* know that word!!!"

In my head, I was thinking that his mom would absolutely, positively just DIE if she heard this conversation.  (sorry, M... but I shudder to think the things Ben has probably said in school, so we're probably pretty even here...)

Related, and possibly THE most amusing part of the evening and the part which I swore I'd keep to myself, but since I was dared to tell the whole truth, here it is -- Simon came up from downstairs later and asked me if "Holy "shid"" was a bad word. (he mispronounced it but I was still shocked to hear it come out of his mouth) Sooooo... sounds like some educational things were happening downstairs. Honestly, I guess I'm kind of surprised we've gotten this far without my boys hearing that word, and I guess it was bound to happen eventually.  My kids know better than to say it though and it's still better than some of things my friends' kids have learned while riding the bus. (Do any of you know about the two angels next to the middle finger routine? Lovely!!!)

Anyway, so the kids played uneventfully for the rest of the evening until I heard the sound I'd been waiting for all afternoon/evening... THAT cry. The one where you go to investigate and just hope you aren't going to be making a trip to the emergency room.

It was Zach and he had banged his head on one of the columns in the playroom during a heated light saber battle. I arrived on the scene to find him laid out flat on the floor, holding his head, and sobbing.

Leave it to me to break the teacher's kids.  Awesome. He was okay though, thankfully, and we were just heading up to get an icepack when his dad arrived. And thus, ended my very exciting three-hour tour of five boys on a school night.

Would I do it again? Absolutely!  Am I crazy? Quite possibly.

Ben had a blast and it really was a totally manageable and fun evening on what would have otherwise been just a boring Thursday.  Fun to shake things up a little sometimes and help someone out in the process.

Zach stopped me in the hall at school the next afternoon and asked, "When Ben comes to my house to play, can he bring his laptop?" LOL.

So with that,  I'm going to go ahead and call it a success. :o)