Digging a Hole to China and PIcking up Sticks
Three sons with a three year gap in ages did not always mean a harmonious house.
When they began to be too rowdy or argue with one another over something really important–like who got to sit next to the window next, I would send them one by one outside to dig a hole to China. The first one got the shovel, then the second got the trowel and the last one got the spoon (if he could sneak it out without me seeing it—then it was just a random stick0
After a short time they united in some sort of combined effort—and the imagined outcome depended upon the last book/movie.
With grand-sons perhaps I am a bit more lenient—okay probably a lot more so—but still busy boys need to let out all that energy.
The youngest grandson is so much like his father—always on the go and never sitting still.
After we watched some of those capsules you put in water and they become a tiny sponge animal—he spied the wheelbarrow from the window and rushed outside. Industrially he picked up sticks–one at a time and showed them to me.
Then he decided he could saw off a branch off the poor mulberry tree–now lying on its side in the yard.
It required some instruction by his dad—but he managed to saw his way through that branch.
Sylvia Weir Art 