Kids on the move

Sometimes I have to reach way back into the past to come up with a topic for a Butterbean article. Our days are usually a lot calmer than they used to be. Writing about everyday life now could potentially put anyone to sleep.
So this story comes from several years back when I had all sorts of kids at home, and life was anything but calm:

"Last night my eight-year-old son had the nerve to tell me to quit wiggling. I was sitting quietly enough on the couch listening to him read a story, only it was a bad story so I was trying to get relief by watching a worse television commercial. Hence the slight rhythmic jiggling of my foot.

But my son didn't say, “Will you please stop wiggling?” Instead he took the oblique approach.

“Do you have to go to the bathroom?”

This impertinence from the kid who is directly related to Tigger. He has springs in his feet, He swims in his sleep. He jumps hurdles at church.

For the past eight years he has been hopping, running, squirming, kicking, dancing, skipping, double-timing through my life, and he has the nerve to fault a little jiggling of my foot?

I suppose the average family has a blanket rule for conduct indoors. Something like “no running in the house” probably covers most of the eventualities. But that just won't cut it in the Butterbean family. Not inclusive enough, or I guess the right word be “exclusive,”

So here is the list of rules for behavior regulating motion in the Butterbean household: (They do kind of date us, but you only have to take a look at us and we are automatically dated anyway.

1. No break-dancing in the kitchen.

2. No sporting events in the house. (Covers sprinting, hurdling, high-jumping, long-jumping, pole-vaulting and throwing anything. Also covers dribbling, slam-dunking, sliding, serving, spiking, etc.
)
3. No Michael Jordan or Greg Loughannes impressions.

4. No karate.

5. No super friends impersonations. (Covers Spiderman, Aquaman, Superman, Batman, Tarzan and Geraldo.)

6. No sugar.

7. I reserve the right to enact new rules without prior notice and upon the discovery of hitherto unknown-or-thought-of anti-inertia forces.
At one time I advised this kid that his body would be less abused if he didn't run everywhere he went. I meant to imply that walking into door jambs is safer than running into them. He thought about that for a few seconds and then replied, “But Mom, running is my main thing.”

Just for your peace of mind, I didn't let the kid get away with checking on my bathroom habits. I invoked my right to administer punishment without prior warning. He had to run around the house twenty times. That would be the outside of the house.
He loved every minute of it. Oh well.

Looking back now, I am wondering how Running Boy and I ever happened to be sitting on the couch reading a book in the first place. I must have had more backbone and determination than I thought I did.

Looking back now, I am wondering how Running Boy and I ever happened to be sitting on the couch reading a book in the first place. I must have had more backbone and determination than I thought I did.