Kids + VHS = Fun

Have you been needing a use for all of those old videotapes? (We actually still watch ours, but I know I'm in the minority on that, among other things. I'm one of the few people over the age of 10 left on the planet who does not have a cell phone. You didn't realize that you knew anyone like that, did you?) Sterling reminded his siblings of how much fun it is to let the videos slide out of their covers and crash on the floor, resulting in something like this:

Then Audrey and Dallin discovered they could stack the videotapes like blocks. Their architectural masterpieces have included but are not limited to towers, dog and doll houses, baby castles, and roads. The floor is often a mine-field of videotape structures around which I have to carefully maneuver, but Sterling invariably sets off series of explosions. The dining room table is regularly covered with buildings of various sizes for which Sterling is a one-man wrecking crew. Surprisingly, Dallin and Audrey have been unusually tolerant of these building delays and will often (but not always) rebuild without complaint of our youngest force of nature. Here are a few more pictures of the fun. No adults were involved in any of the construction.

A word of caution. Towers this large wake up babies when they crash and have been known to break off corners of old tapes.

The kids are required to help clean up the construction site once demolition is completed. They usually just grab the nearest videotape and shove it into the closest case, resulting in an added bonus later: a movie scavenger hunt! It has made movie-watching at our house a little more exciting because what you see is usually not what you get. For example, being supposedly autumn and football season, I wanted to watch a football movie the other day. But instead of Rudy I found That Thing You Do. And instead of Remember the Titans I found Apollo 13. I even checked Football America (a documentary produced about 13 years ago that featured my home town and our high school football team). No luck. Jurassic Park. I was lucky to find one after searching through just a few more titles, but there have been times when I haven't even looked at the title of the movie. I just put it in the VCR and get what I get. Which is sometimes a little disappointing when I want a romantic comedy and get an action film instead, although Melvin is generally pleased by that. (This works both ways. If you're in the mood for Indiana Jones and get Anne of Green Gables instead, your viewing pleasure may be decreased.)

Videotapes also work well as giant dominoes, in case you were wondering. Happy playing!