#192 - Playing Sit - July 11, 2013

Cool thing from the last 24: I played Sit with my Boy Scouts, and the quiet kid won.

Sit is a simple game - there is one (usually) wallball or soft volleyball, and a group of people.  Every person puts his toe in the circle in the middle of a basketball court. Someone tosses the ball up, and the game begins.  If you have the ball, you are supposed to throw it at someone.  If it hits the person and falls to the ground, the person sits.  If the person catches it, you sit.  You can only throw at people on your half of the basketball court and you can not cross the midcourt line with the ball.  If you are sitting and you recover the ball, you can stand and run.  The last man standing wins that round.

I came to scouts prepared to teach the boys about preparing wood for a fire.  But I also realized that we had a campout planned, so after some discussion it become clear that everyone preferred to play sit tonight and do the fire starting thing on the campout.

So we played.  I like to play games with the boys.  They're 11, so I'm bigger and faster and stronger than they are.  And I won a couple times.   But 2 other boys also won, and I spent plenty of time on the floor.  What was the best part about it was that the quietest boy in the patrol won the last game.  I reached out my hand to shake his, and he gave me the ball.  After which I shook his hand.

Home life these days is really simple.  Nobody complains about the food we're eating, nobody hogs the kids' laptop, there's room on the trampoline for everyone, and there is no super-bossy kid around.  There is quiet space for everyone.  Having 2 boys is infinitely simpler than the 2-gender, twice-as-many situation we usually have.  Not that the girls are trouble, but it is fascinating to see the power dynamics change with them gone and the boys able to do what they want.