"Sit Down Dodgeball"

Tonight at about 7pm I told the kids they needed to go have some "outside time". In Mommy talk this means get the heck out of the house before I kill you! They were excited to go even though it was still at least 100 degrees! I put the baby in the swing and the other three decided to play on the trampoline (this can be dangerous when there is more than one boy on the tramp at a time)! I gave the baby a few pushes in the swing and told the other boys that I had to go to the bathroom and would be out in a few minutes- this is code for I'm going inside to actually get a moment alone! While I was in the house I heard a lot of screaming. It wasnt the screams of someone hurt it was the kind of screams that happen BEFORE someone gets hurt because there was still laughter with the screams. Anyway, I went back out and Christian and Cooper are sitting down on the tramp and Chase is standing up throwing balls (mainly basketballs) at their faces! I said "what are you doing?". He looked at me as if I were dumb (I get this look a lot) and said, "We are playing sit down dodgeball"! I've never heard of this game before, have you? A flash of what the rest of the night might be like went through my head- a kid with a broken nose, me calling Cindy to come watch the other kids because Dan is out of town, and me and the broken nose kid going to the ER. Similar situations like this have happened before, more than a few times actually! I had to think fast of what to say to my boys to get them to stop and I wanted to try and do it without threatening them like I usually do. The first thing that came to mind (and I said it) was "The spirit has told me that if you continue to do that someone is going to get hurt and have to go the the ER like Cooper did with his broken wrist. It is your choice to continue but Im telling you someone is going to get hurt." It is kind of true, right..that "flash" I had was kind of like the spirit. Anyway to my amazement, they stopped and we finished the night off on a good note!