Spring Break.

Working parents know Spring Break isn't what it was back in college. Most of us take two or three days off from the job or work out elaborate kid-sharing arrangements with other moms and dads. Mostly there's a lot of cowering under a pillow with your laptop hoping to get two minutes' work done between arbitrating fights or saying, "oh, really?" with feigned interest when your ten-year-old explains in detail his triumph on the latest world in Super Mario Brothers. But I'm proud of my boys. Yesterday, without my even needing to say "use your imagination" when the kids were looking for something to do, Ezra conceived of a sort of live-action Sims challenge for Ambrose, who went along with it sometimes reluctantly but along with it nonetheless.

The contest rules. "You will have 30 minutes to survive."

Challenge 1: The farming quiz. Ezra found the questions online. Ambrose was totally confused by some of the questions about, for example, the regulation height of chicken enclosures, but he passed.

For the Farm Plan (#2) Ambrose simply drew a farm.

At work on the #3, the shelter.

#4 Ambrose carrying water from the river and pouring it into glasses using only a spoon.

I was trying to get some work done in between yelling at Ezra to stop being so impatient with Ambrose, who was getting really pissed about what really were very confusing directions ("You want me to draw a farm?" "No! A Farm PLAN. Just show like where the building is and where the fields are and everything." "So you want me to draw a farm.") and trying to encourage Ambrose to stick it out, which he did.

My reward was to let them spend the next several hours playing Wii and shocking their brain cells to death with waves of ultrasonic grating idiocy radiating from Sponge Bob through the TV.