Price of Forgiveness? ... A Corn Dog.

As you know, I have 4 boys and 1 girl. I have grown up with a dad who served in some various scout position my whole growing up life. I have served consistantly in the Cub Scout program for the past 12 years. Having said that, I have to say that I have come to somewhat understand and appreciate certain aspects of the boy pyschie.

Here is an example of the appreciation I've learned;

I was at the ball field a couple of weeks ago watching one son play ball. I had another son and his friend with me, who were waiting for their game to start. I observed them over on the other side of the field tagging eachother with a baseball. I baseball mind you, not a t-ball; difference being the baseball is rather harder than the t-ball.

Of course, with my mom eye, I could see where this was going. However, the boys should be old enough by now to have figured it out for themselves. But being boys, fun overrules common sense. So this goes on for a little while until my son's friend catches him offguard and pegs him in the shoulder blade a little harder than intended. Sure enough, reflex boy action kicks in and my son turns around and pegs his friend with the ball pretty hard. Yes, that hurt!

My son, is of course, apologetic but to no avail. He turns and looks in my direction. We make that mother-son non-verbal contact of "I saw the whole thing!" I raise an eyebrow and turn away.

10 minutes later he comes over and sits besides me and announces he has lost one of his best friends. I tell him I'm sure it isn't that bad. "Yes it is. I said I was sorry and he said he didn't forgive me!" I tell him it would probably take me a while to forgive him too when I was writhing in pain. Of course my son wasn't convinced.

I bit later I give him a few $$ to go over and get a hotdog to eat and suggest that he take some of the $$ and get his friend one too. He looked at me dubiously and said "why would I do that when he's not even my friend? Besides, I wanted a hot chocolate too." I gave him the "raised eyebrow" and told him to suit himself but that was all the money I had.

I while later I notice my son walking over to his non-friend and handing him corn dog; in essense a peace offering. Said friend takes the proffered corn dog. No words spoken. A few minutes later, my son and his "nonfriend" are at least sitting in the same bleacher section.

By the time my other son was done with his game my son and his friend were standing next to eachother. I left the field to take the first son home.

When I came back to the game later on to watch the end and pick him up I notice the two laughing it up and talking as normal. I chuckle and relate all that had happened to the friends' father.

His response... "They had their first fight? Cool!" (typical)

You may find this boring and trivial but I am sitting here busting up. I have really come to love this about the boy physcie. For the most part they can have a tiff or blow up one moment and the next it's all forgiven and forgotten and back to the next match! I have to admit, and from some personal experience I must admit, that this is not so true of girls. Definately a saving grace!