Thursday, January 17, 2008

The power of fire

I just saw this picture Sister captured at the boys' birthday party. I had similar pictures, but this one literally takes the cake!



It frightens me somewhat, because genetically speaking, the love of fire comes honest for both of my boys. I'm sure once we have all of the genetic chromosome whatever testing done, there will be a mutation on one of the chromosomes that indicates the propensity to love fire in a big bad way.

My dad weeds his driveway with a blow torch.

Hubby set fire to his parents' ditch when he was a child. The story varies. I've heard he did it because he was "double dog dared." I've heard he did it because he was bugging the adults and one of them said casually, "Why don't you go set the ditch on fire or something. Get outta here." Who knows why he did it, but he did.

I used to play with fire outside on the concrete porch. I liked to burn things like paper and leaves.

We all still like to play with fire in more controlled settings, but pretend that it's out of the need to be functional. You know, messing with the grill, stove, candles, or fireplace.

We have no lighters or matches in our house. And I try desperately not to let the boys see how I use the gas stove to provide fire for any of our candles. But boy do they love fire. Bubba's love of fire started young. Looks like Moosie isn't too far behind. Hopefully they don't put their love of fire and their love of firetrucks together anytime soon.

Edited to add: Say NO to fire! (Thanks to Stimey for the link to the video.)

4 comments:

Stimey said...

Yeah, I see Jack's eyes light up if he sees something get lit on fire. I'm hoping it doesn't turn into a problem.

I lived in Alaska for a year and up there everyone weeds by setting their lawns on fire. I even saw the people at the fire station doing it.

My husband's efforts to burn a pile of leaves instead of bagging it because there was a "scary spider" in it didn't go as well. Since then we have a rule: If he wants to set something, anything on fire, he has to ask me first.

Club 166 said...

Boys love fire.

And they never grow out of it.

I love that birthday snap!

Joe

Ange said...

Stimey: permission is always good. we have a similar policy here.

Joe: When I first started using the gas grill, I remember how confident and powerful I felt, that I can control something that can be so good but oh so bad. I yelled to hubby that I finally understood why he loved to grill. He then came outside and turned down the fire. I scare him when I grill or use knives. *shrug*

Anonymous said...

Those kids in the Youtube video really love them some fire! I suspect they set it themselves.
We have a vacation house in coastal Maine. Everybody up there has a "trash barrel" in which unwanted items are burned. Trash barrels keep kids occupied. Quite a few of them go around looking singed but that's all part of the fun.