Enthusiasm

I am so excited to write this post that I feel as if I am about to burst. I am having trouble containing my feelings regarding the upcoming subject.... That is a form of enthusiasm, true. But it is not my preferred form of enthusiasm. I do not like to describe my excited feelings in a staid, placid way. No, mine is the enthusiasm of "LET'S DO THIS!" or "GET SICK WITH THIS" or "PASSING ON YOUR LEFT SUGAR BUNS, WHOOOOOO" (I recently hollered this as my younger son and I passed my wife during a bike ride- it was thrilling). The interesting thing about my preferred expression of enthusiasm is that it does not really represent who I am. I am not a "LET'S DO THIS" guy. I'm a 'do your best!' guy. But, when utilizing enthusiasm to encourage and entertain your boys, it's full-tilt or no-tilt.
Enthusiasm is great. First off, it's fun to be enthusiastic. It's also a great way to recharge waning energy (in oneself as in others). I will frequently find myself exhausted and a tad bored when challenged to a Nerf-sword battle or a basketball game or a whiffle ball game. But I enjoy these activities. To gain the energy I need, I'll below "I'm gonna CRUSH YOU FOOLS" or something to that effect. The boys love it. I get the extra boost to engage in the mortal combat that is stay-at-home fathering. It's a win-win. It's also frequently very funny. My youngest son just walked up to me, literally a second ago, put his arm around my neck, and growled (how's that for enthusiastic) "You're a foxy dude. You're a foxy baby. I've got a crush on you. Let's go on a date. You're hot like curry." All this, completely unprovoked, unsolicited raw enthusiasm. It didn't make much sense, but what a way to relate! Also relevant is a comment that my older son just made to my wife. "Hey mommy," he shouted at her with great zeal, "the potatoes are growing!" I, myself, am no gardener; it does not get my juices flowing. But my wife likes to do it, my boys like to do it, and enthusiasm is a river running through it. I know that many of you may be alienated by my description of enthusiasm. Perhaps you're thinking (and you wouldn't be totally wrong), 'what a freak this father is!!" All that energy. I am not comfortable/willing to expend such energy when I could relate to my child in an equally effective, less energy-intensive way. For you, I present an example of enthusiasm used to calm a rowdy crowd. We just returned from a great trip to my parents' house. My sister was there as was her awesome family. She has two boys, we have two boys. This may come as a surprise to you, but young boys of the same basic age tend to wrestle. This is not always a good fit; my parents have a wonderful house, but it is not entirely wrestle-ready. Before the boys (my boys and my nephews) could destroy my parents' living-room, I decided to settle things down using, wait for it, enthusiasm. Now, I had to be subtle here. Had I approached these four little beasts (I say that with great love) with a "I'M GONNA CRUSH YOU SUCKERS!" or "BE PREPARED TO GET SETTLED" (I have endless aggressive phrases that I save for people at-least one fifth my age) there would not have been a good outcome. The four cousins, working together with joyful barbarity could probably have CRUSHed or SETTLEd me. Instead, I sat them on the couch and told them about Lythington Battler, a heroic Bard with several good friends (all awesome fighters, duh!). I started telling these stories to my boys before bedtime or when I need to pacify them in a car. Anyhow, this particular story required a great deal of energy to, paradoxically, reduce the energy of the four cousins. I told the story, along with physical demonstrations (in slow-motion and with bone-crushing sound effects) of the physical feats of Lythington and his friends (called the Companions). Transfixed, the boys watched as I swung my leg to demonstrate Dasbey the Thief's knocking out four brigands or punched super-fast (thanks Jillian Michaels) to show how Ozin dispatched the eight brigands he faced or performed the nature-magic of Ranthor of Gilgamesh or did the body-twisting kicks of Lythington himself. The point is, it took energy to tell the story. More than that, it took enthusiasm to tell it well. And the good story-telling and awesome physical displays (shout out to me) successfully diffused the boys' energy (for a brief while) and save my parents' living room from some pounding.
I think that I've done a good job presenting the positives that enthusiasm can have on parenting. To be fair, there can be pit-falls. Think of life as a balance. Positive outpourings of emotion are often balanced by negative ones. My youngest son displays this with unerring consistency at dinner every night. If he is offered anything other than a peanut butter and honey sandwich, he protests, with GREAT enthusiasm: "I HATE .... (fill in the blank here; it could be any food including something that he LOVED just a moment before). If nothing else, it makes dinner interesting. My older likes to enthusiastically share his pain. Last night, we departed a plane at what felt like 2:20AM (due to time-change). He walked through the airport nearly screaming his discomfort (much to pleasure, I'm sure, of the other passengers who were equally tired). Enthusiasm can also be dangerous when experienced during a wrestling match. My boys are athletic and tenacious (a physical form of enthusiasm). This combined with my already tired body results in actual bodily pain (different from the usual psychological perils of stay-at-home fathering).
Still, the good out-ways the bad. Using enthusiasm, we enjoy ourselves, we apply ourselves with greater conviction toward projects or causes (Go Sox!), we even divert the potentially destructive (literally not figuratively) energy of young boys. Sure, there can be some negative side-effects of an enthusiastic approach to parenting. But I still count it as an essential tool for the daily caring for one's brood.