Summer Time Stories

The boys are home for the summer and any time we are in the house for more than 15 minutes, they say "I'm bored". They haven't actually had to deal with it too much because we've been so busy. Next week, they have full time camp and the week after that is also full time camp.

But in the time they've been home, it feels like they talk non-stop. The other day, Grady says "I had a dream last night. There was a lady bug and I was trying to hold it, but it blew up into a big giant lady bug." And Peter butts in to say "Probably cause it was holding a fart in."

There was more to the dream. Grady's dreams are always well explained. He told me about how he felt bad that everyone else was holding their lady bugs and it was only his that got too big to hold. But when he registered Peter's words, the whole explanation devolved into talk about farts and how huge it would have been. I find it all amusing, but I'm pretty good at not laughing.

Their dinner time conversations are just as intense. They collaborate on stories all day long, but it's some strange form of screenwriting because they say "pretend I just grabbed this *grab*", but they don't actually grab it. But they say "grab" like they had to specify how it's now happened.

Grady: Pretend I just jumped onto your space ship and it's running out of air.
Peter: But I pump air in from outside. *pump*
Grady: But then I suck all the air into me.
Peter: And then I died.
Grady: But I blew some air on you and brought you back to life.
Peter: But it didn't work because I only breathe water.
Grady: But I turned into a half-blood and shot water in your face. *shoot*
Peter: And that revived me. *sigh* But I'm a half-blood too and I made ice. *make*
Grady: So I shot more water at you. *shoot*
Peter (with circular arm motions): And I made it into a tunnel.

And they go on, and on, and on. I have to keep reminding them to eat their dinner because they do it the entire time they're at the table too. They come up with names for themselves, like Spock-a-hedge and Captain Guinea. They have special voices for when they're talking to each other (but they use normal voices while narrating). They bring parts of all the things they like into their screenplay: Pac-Man, Hedgehogs and Guinea Pigs, Star Trek, Percy Jackson. Nothing is safe from their fanfic-ing.

I think Grady could play this same thing all day. He completely lives in the world inside his head. Peter...gets a little more bored with it sooner. He'll get busy with a project and Grady will just stand next to him calling for him to play and making up first lines in the story.

So, they don't usually play games and stories with their action figures, because everything they're doing is live action. The only other thing they choose on their own so far is playing their DSs. I'm having to put some limits onto the DSs because they grab them anytime they're sitting down...and then they start getting cranky when they have to stop or when the game is not going their way or when they've played too long and are bored but still don't want to put them down.