New Athletic Moves

Over the course of the last few weeks the boys have been ratcheting up the intense rivalry that is common in young boys, scratch that all boys. The newest installment includes variations on base jumping, arm barring, bronc busting and lassoing. I'll explain:

Base Jumping: commonly done by professionals and just crazy people with parachutes. My kids satisfy one criterion namely craziness. They believe the stairs to be their own personal base jumping apparatus and they keep trying it from new heights. Antonio is now attempting to make it to the landing from the 5th stair. Angelo is still on the 3rd. Rarely do they land on their feet. They are lucky to land on all fours. A couple of days ago Antonio attempted to jump from a running start down the stairs. Let's just say that the slide into the front door was about as graceful as I've ever seen an almost five year old make.

The Arm Bar: a.k.a. "The Heisman." The spontaneous twitch that causes a sibling's arm to fly straight out to one side in order to block the other from accomplishing a task. It is often accompanied by the phrases "Me First" and "Hey Wait." It has been spotted in a few places around the house including as the kids are running down the stairs and as a precursor to base jumping. It has also been known to occur in the race to see who gets to open the car door. Antonio is taller, lankier, faster and ultimately better equipped to deliver the arm bar, but Angelo is by far more cunning in so far as I have thrice seen him evade the arm bar by ducking, twisting and just flat out running over Antonio.

Bronc Busting: Seen commonly in Rodeos and in nearly every Western movie. I actually caught Antonio trying to sit on Angelo the other day. Not only that but he had a blanket over Angelo's back and was attempting to ride him like a horse. Antonio explained later that the blanket was just like what cowboys put under their saddles when they ride horses. Here I was thinking he was torturing his brother and in his mind he was being quite considerate. I immediately put a stop to it, but can swear I hear it outside my door while I'm on conference calls.

Lassoing: One of the most basic cowboy skills. My boys take this to new places. Last time I saw them they were upstairs with a blanket over the arm of the couch (they are big on the whole blanket between them and the riding object) and were waving their belts in the air like lassos. Unfortunately they were fighting over who got to ride and lasso and it's not like the couch has two arms on it or anything right? Anyway Angelo decided to exact a little revenge on Antonio by grabbing the "lasso" while Antonio was waving it around and he yanked him off the couch. Antonio came down with a thud and having witnessed the previous bronc busting event I had a hard time not wetting myself laughing. Ah...sweet revenge.

I am a bit frightened about what may be coming in the near future but so far all fingers and toes are intact and they only have a few bruises to show for it and in my book that's a victory.