If the blogger spawn present at Geek Dinner 3 were any indication, D and I may just end up with a wild and cute Vatul-let or two. Cliette, Lisa‘s young supermodel, The Girl, Liprap‘s charming little terrorist, Gil Homan and Liam Shea stole my heart, and Clio IV melted it by letting me help him with his tiny little socks and shoes.
At one point in the evening, most of the girls were lined up like polite little sardines on the couch in front of the television, while a majority of the guys piled up on the divan fighting over the DS2 or whatever caught their fancy each passing second. As the girls sat back staring at the clumsy oafs that dare disturb their TV-watching peace, the males launched into a pillow fight. I noticed, however, that Cliette and The Girl were itching to join in the rumble. It was time to adminster a small socio-psychological experiment.
After Therese “Sue Allstate” Fitzpatrick left the room, I looked over at the girls and asked, “Why do you sit here in such a docile manner while the boys go at it with the pillows?” Cliette protested, “We want to, but our parents said No.” Kalypso suggested that I create a little diversion for the parents to let the kids get it on WWE style. I shut the door to the kitchen and told everyone they had 30 seconds to beat the bejeezus out of one another using the pillows, after which peace would be called and everyone had to calm down. One caveat: If they were to break even one of dangerblond‘s things, all fun would be zipped up for the rest of the evening. Mad babysitting skillz in effect.
Ok, go. Fifteen seconds into it, Kalypso got one in on young Master Folse and Cliette had almost smothered Clio III (all while the Shea girl and Clio II sat back and enjoyed the fun). Liprap’s kid and Clio IV simply screamed and ran amok like drunken midgets. It was a hoot!
5 … 4 … 3 … 2 … 1 … 0.5 … TIME! All of the girls immediately rushed back to their former positions on the couch and beamed at me, while the boys continued at it. Hmmm …. evasive maneuvers were in order. Commander Maitri walked over to the boys and threatened them with parental involvement and/or application of bear hugs, at which time all boisterousness abruptly ceased. It’s good to have weapons of choice.
My conclusion about this data set: The girls are not angels by any stretch of the imagination, but respect their limits, whether self-imposed or dictated. The boys simply don’t give a damn, unless threatened by authority or the other devious feminine tactic, girl cooties.
The Doctor is out.
Alternate interpretation:
The boys are more openly and honestly defiant in the face of draconian discipline, while the girls are more calculating and.. in fact.. only affect rebelliousness when it becomes a socially acceptable and.. indeed.. meaningless gesture.
Or the girls practise rebelliousness when not in the view of authority figures so they don’t get punished as often as the boys do. More deviant, I would say.
Or devious.
Was Clio II the redheaded teenage boy?
The feigned disinterest in anything going on around them between him and Shea Spawn the Eldest was kinda cute.
Yes, the one who exchanged numbers with your daughter before he left. Whoops, was that out loud?
Even nice kids are rotten. Rotten to the core. And when they get organized in groups with power?!? Dear naive Maitri. Kids are fun until you have them. It is sort of like the difference between borrowing someone’s boat for the weekend or owning one.
Yep, you pegged the little guy. He’s a teensy terrorist. God help us all.
Now who’s gonna design the “Blogger Spawn” t-shirts, and what kinda blackmail should we use to get the kids to wear ’em?
And who’s brave enough to sponsor and host the First Blogger Spawn Hoe-Down?
And Maitri, we will be in touch RE babysitting The Girl. We like to share our good fortune.
My house might serve well for the Spawn Hoe-Down. A whole mess of kids can’t do much worse to our place than one four-year-old. Really. And with any luck, we can spread THAT good fortune with our neighbor.
Hilarious portrayal of an evening with the “rugrats.” Kids really do say and do the darndest things that we KNOW we’d be aching to do.
And no, I won’t be an auntie and ask about “good news.” Yet. Spawn Hoe-Downs might be the antidote. ;-)
Auntie Amelie-Freak, there will be no such good news for a while, especially not when all the aunties at work come by my office once a day and ask when I’m going to have my own little ones. One of these days I’m going to say to them, “The ovaries are so scared of you, they’re retreating upwards.”