I guess part of being a nearly eight year old boy is learning how to use your body in some kind of coordinated way. It must be doubly difficult when you can sit still for a single moment.

I was sitting down to play Monopoly – China version – with Aidan on Thursday afternoon. We needed to do a lot of work to set the get the game set up because Elisa has “played” monopoly earlier in the weeks. Under Elisa’s rules the object of the game is to shuffle all the money into one big mess, crimpling as needed.  Aidan was excited to be playing and moving around in his chair. Lean forward. Lean back. Arms out with lean. Now arms sideways on lean back. You get the picture. On one of his rocks forward he pushed the monopoly board and it in turned pushed an empty water glass (actual) glass off the table and onto our faux marble floor. Crash, glass into hundreds of pieces. As the ayis cleaned up the glass and we kept Elisa from running around on top of it in her bare feet I “lectured” Aidan on being more aware of his movements. I say “lectured” in quotes because I wasn’t upset at all about the glass breaking it was just one of those things. (My level of upset-ness in general seems to be in direct proportion with the stress I’ve been feeling and I haven’t been feeling much stress these days.)  The glass finally cleaned up and then it was time to pick our pieces and start the game.

Another lean, a swing of the arms from Aidan, another water glass caught in his path. Crash, shatter, repeat. Aidan’s face in surprise followed by “ah man!”.

So I figure that is just par for the course with a nearly eight year old. At the same time I’m off to IKEA to buy plastic glasses.