The minds of boys

Last week Zach opened the stomp rockets he got for his birthday.  (For those not familiar with this toy, it's a plastic bulb attached to a hose which is then attached to a rocket.  Stomp on the bulb, and the rocket shoots into the air.)  He had some last year, but by the end of the summer they were toast.  Remembering how high his old rockets soared, he eagerly opened the new ones hoping they'd go just as high.  They didn't.

For several days, Zach methodically took his stomp rocket outside and practiced shooting the rocket into the air and catching it.  As the rocket only rose about three feet, this was a good game for a little person, but it got old pretty quickly.

Then one day Zach and a friend were out in the yard with the rocket when I heard the sound.

If you've raised a son, you know the sound I'm talking about. It usually comes about when he's left to his own devices, possibly with other boys present. It's the deep, multi-tonal, "Whooooooah!", which usually indicates the shift from, "Yeah, ok, this is pretty fun..." to "Now THAT's cool!"

The tricky thing about this sound is that sometimes it's the result of a harmless activity and other times it  signifies the potential for limb loss.  Since results are usually 50-50, you have to run when you hear it.  Luckily I was already outside and nearby.  I whipped around to see Zach and his buddy Eldon with the stomp rocket, Zach yelling excitedly, "Watch this, watch this!"

Zach then proceded to jump as high as he could over the toy, kick his legs out in front of him and land on the bulb with his butt.  The rocket soared about 10 feet into the air, both boys laughing with delight at their new found discovery.  Bruised tail bones aside, they kept shooting rockets using their new technique and I just stood by and savored the moment.

There are times when that sound is just plain bad news and the scene you run to makes you question both your son's IQ and where you went wrong as a parent.  Other times, though, what you find is pure glee stemming from the combination of unbridled curiosity and boundless imagination unique to little boys like mine.