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Laps

On my days off, I usually spend some time playing with the kids in the daycare. Most of the time, it's pretty simple stuff, like playing with Legos. Other times, the fact that I am physically stronger than the kids turns into a game. Regardless of the activity, though, the one thing that never ceases to amaze me is that kids like repetition. Put it this way: I have played with Legos so many times recently that the kids have gotten bored of the usual fare (cars, airplanes, and houses), and they have started getting creative. I can now truthfully claim to have built a giraffe, a turtle, and a duck out of Legos.

Anyhow, this particular penchant for repetition always crops up in unexpected ways. For example, we had several kids over at one point, and I jokingly started chasing one of them. The kid naturally started running away, only he didn't want to run through the length of the house. Instead, he started running in a circle through the kitchen, dining room, and living room. A couple of the other kids saw this and thought it looked like fun, so they joined in the game. It wasn't quite a game of tag, since no one was really the designated chaser. Also, there was no real end to the game. No, we were running around for the heck of it.

The amazing thing about it all was that this game went on for a good ten to fifteen minutes. Luckily, I am no stranger to distance running, so I was able to keep this up. Somewhere around the tenth lap around my kitchen, though, it occurred to me that I was literally running in circles. The squeals of laughter around me quickly pushed this thought out, but I did notice that the game went on far longer than I expected.

The funniest example of this, however, involves a pair of twins. They are both bright, mischievous boys who are now walking around pretty steadily. Now, they are not allowed in my room because I haven't made the effort to baby-proof my room. There are plenty of sharp-ish corners, and I keep things like letter openers or keys on my nightstand. A twenty-something knows how to handle these objects, but one year old toddlers do not, so they are not allowed in the room.

If you remember, though, I said that these are mischievous twins (they take after their brother). They will jump on any opportunity they see to find their way into my room. If the door to my room is open and they are left unsupervised, they will eventually find their way into the forbidden area. Even better, because they are smart kids, they realize that the sound of the doorknob turning means that the door will be ajar for a few moments. I have opened the door to my room to see speeding toddlers headed in my direction on more than one occasion. It makes things interesting, that's for sure.

On the occasions that one of them does manage to sneak his way into my room, though, I have to remove him from the premises. I have found that the easiest way to do this is to grab him under the armpits, and physically relocate him somewhere else in the house. In order to prevent any whining or crying, though, I usually make whooshing sounds and sway him from side to side a little bit. In short, I pretend like he's flying so that he doesn't notice that he's being kicked out.

The distraction part of the plan works out really well. However, this works a little too well. It looks an awful lot like a game to any other toddlers that may be watching. Well, these are twins, so there is always another toddler watching. As soon as I drop one of them off, the other one will notice. He will invariably dash as fast as his legs allow towards the room, so that he can have a turn on the flying machine (read: me). So now I have to go back to my room and make the other twin fly to the spot where I just finished dropping off his brother.

Once that happens, though, it's now a full-blown game. I can shuttle one twin from my room to the other end of the house fairly quickly, but I can't make a full loop back to my room before the other twin makes it to my room. In short, I don't want to sprint twice as fast as a toddler around my house. I'm still indoors, so that'd be gauche. Secondly, there are other people in my house and I don't want to accidentally run into one of them. So, I end up having to do laps from one end of the house to the other, all the while making whooshing sounds and keeping one year olds entertained.

Judging by the number of times that they keep going back, the twins really like this game. In fact, it is not uncommon for the twin that was just put on the ground to immediately turn around and walk back towards my room. Incidentally, that makes it even harder to do a full loop around the house before he reaches his destination. They like this game so much that I have occasionally spent enough time walking/carrying/whooshing around my house to actually start sweating. I'm not a super athlete or anything, but I will say that if I have to sweat from that kind of mild exercise, I've been doing it for a non-trivial amount of time.

Luckily for me, one of the two kids will usually get distracted eventually. That breaks the chain, and lets me successfully keep any toddlers out of my room. Of course, that part doesn't usually happen until I've had reason to wonder if I even need a gym membership. I've practically got a race track built right into my own house, after all.

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