Feet of destruction

The boys decided to play Candyland the other day. When I asked them to please put it away when they were finished, Joshua informed me that they had destroyed the box. "Of course you did," I replied, and went off to find a suitable container for the cards and little gingerbread men.

I was not surprised. My children think the boxes which games and toys come in are part of the entertainment, provided for their stomping pleasure. If I have any thought of putting a game back into its original box, I have to remove said box from their sight immediately. If I don't, that box will invariably end up on the floor, ripped, flattened, and devoid of all function.

Unfortunately, it is not just boxes which receive the two-footed treatment. Anything on the floor is subject to stomping. Isaac (3) especially delights in crushing every object in sight. If the entire floor is clean except for one piece of cereal, he will go out of his way to grind it to powder before I can bend over to pick it up. If I have left the vacuum sitting out, all four boys will at some point treat it as though it is a bridge from one part of the room to the other.

I'm not sure what causes this behavior. I don't think it's Y-chromosome related, since I have never noticed my husband grinding food into the carpet or stomping on the cereal boxes after he empties them. Perhaps I have a bunch of budding clog dancers? Maybe they just want to see if Daddy's right and the floor really will cave in? I don't know.

But what really confuses me is why, despite their stomping prowess, none of them can step on a bug. They always come running to me for that. Running, and screaming. It's a mystery.