It never ceases to amaze me the things that can entertain a 4 year old and simply make his day.
Yesterday evening, Andrew had to create a collage poster about himself for his Theater Arts class. Evidently this was a major grade for him. He also had to have a costume of some sort while presenting his poster. I told him I thought it would be appropriate for him to take his sword with him but that I didn’t think that the school would approve. He had already decided that he’d take his sparring helmet and hand gear with him. He just laughed at the whole sword thing. He knew I was just being silly.
Anyway, he had gotten his gear out of the karate bag that resides in the back of my minivan and left it laying on the floor for him to take with him this morning. Lance felt that this was the perfect opportunity to try it on when we were done with scripture study this morning. No worries. It was rather cute because while the gear is getting a little small for Andrew, it is too big for Lance…so just simply cute. Lance was beside himself and immediately tried to take after his brother with his new found “fighting gear.”
Well after school this afternoon, Lance was more than happy to take his brother’s sparring helmet and hand gear from him as he pulled it back out of his bag. One would assume that this is because Lance is excited about the possibility of one day being able to use it…Alas, this could not go on forever. I didn’t want him to feel that he could confiscate the gear from this day forward. Thursday is karate night after all. The gear would have to return to the bag in the back of the minivan much to Lance’s disappointment.
If I had known that it would cause him this much joy, however…
I have invested in quality sparring gear for the boys. Well, in the helmet department anyway. I’ve bought the standard issue student sparring gear for the hands and feet, but I’ve always spent extra to get the higher quality helmet. Head protection is important to me. That and the more expensive helmets take the nicer face shields/cages in case we ever decided to buy those. As a result of this little extra expense and the fact that the helmets do not wear out like the feet and hand gear does, I still had Andrew’s old helmet from when he was just a bit bigger than Lance is.
I stopped what I was doing and wandered into the bedroom where to get it. I found his old hand gear in there too. Evidently that set of hand gear made it through the torturous sparring they do. I handed it to Lance. He was a bit confused at first, but I said, “It’s for you.” His eyes got so big. BIG! “My very own fighting gear?!?” Yes, your very own. “These hands will fit me better.” He’s stripping out of his brother’s hand gear to put them on as I place the helmet on his head.
It is often the simple things that give the most mileage in the entertainment department. Lance ate dinner with the gear on. It was definitely humorous to watch him try and use his fork to eat his dinner with the hand gear on. He was rather upset when I wouldn’t let him wear it to bed.
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