Boys Conference

This weekend was a lovely semi-annual experience we Mormons like to call General Conference. It is a fabulous two-day affair where we can stay at home if we like, and watch/listen to our church leaders give inspiring discourses on a variety of life-changing topics.

In my house, we cannot wait for conference!!!

I'm serious (and I'll tell you why momentarily). I know, as a kid, other than the staying home from church part, I thought conference was a huge burden. I grew up in Utah and they broadcast conference on the TV and the radio. My parents required us to sit nicely and listen to one session (there are four 2-hour sessions), and for like one or two others, we had to be listening, somewhere in the house. My brother and I usually locked ourselves in his bedroom, turned on the radio real low, and played legos.

Are you guys listening to conference!?!

Yeah mom!

For some hopeless reason, I have higher aspirations than that (my mother is smarter than I am). I lived abroad for a period of my life and we got a couple hours of conference translated into Italian via a snail-mailed video tape like two weeks later. It was a rare treat. I realized just what I'd missed out on and taken for granted all my childhood. Now with the internet, we can pop open the laptop and stream live video into our living room. We even got a cord to connect it to the TV!!

In hopes of helping my children come to the realization of what a blessing conference is earlier in their lives than I did, I've tried to make it a more exciting experience for them.

How? you ask.

Candy.

Yep, every conference, I buy a big bowl of candy and set it on the coffee table. We also set up an exciting thing we call "the conference tent" pointing toward the TV (like the people in the Book of Mormon did in the days of King Benjamin--sans TV of course). I print out bingo boards and every time they hear someone mention a word from their bingo board (like Jesus, or Love, or Heaven), they get to cover that square with a piece of candy. When they get a bingo, they get to eat the candy.

This keeps their interest for about, oh, ten minutes. Until they're just gorging themselves sick on candy and I'm saying whatever, just be quiet! And yelling things like STOP HITTING YOUR BROTHER! CAN'T YOU HEAR HIM TALKING ABOUT LOVING YOUR NEIGHBOR? YOUR BROTHER IS YOUR NEIGHBOR!!

I also sometimes print out what is known in the Mormon internet world as Conference Packets. I do this in a vain attempt to prove that my children are normal and well-behaved. Every time when I set out the packets and a box of crayons or markers, they look at me like I'm insane and ask for more candy. This year I flipped through the packet with Elliot. He did the hidden picture page in about 10 seconds flat and refused to look at the thing again.

Is it a boy thing? Or is it just my kids? I see kids in church sitting quietly coloring pictures of Jesus while I bodily separate my children, prying fingers off throats and bandaging up bloody wounds after physically dragging them from the chapel.

My nieces could sit and color for hours. I've seen a crayon in my child's hands fewer times than I can count on my fingers. Did I do something wrong?

As I sat and pondered this dilemma this weekend, I began considering a conference packet of ideas for boys. For day two, I scratched the packets and attempted to implement two activities which had come to mind. I'm pondering, searching, praying and soliciting ideas from anyone out there on activities to engage boys in conference. But here are the two I tried today with mixed results (nonetheless, still better than the coloring packets):

1) The Rameumptum: Get out a large (and I mean like 100) bag of plastic cups. Put them in a stack near the television. Instruct boys that they are not to touch the stack until I tell them they can. When they touch it anyway and it tips over, require that they pick them up, restack, don't hit your brother, and reiterate that we do not touch the cups until mom says to. And then, you can only touch one. No, you cannot touch your brother's, he can do his own. And stop hitting your brother. No one is allowed to touch anyone else, or the cups, until mom says. Then, make them sit in front of the television, eyeing the cups with their bingo boards on their laps. When they hear the speaker say a word from the board, they (with permission from mom as judge) can take a cup and place it on the floor or table. They repeat this, stacking them higher and higher into a tower of cups. When it falls, everyone cheers and we start over. If you run out of cups, the next person to get a word gets to knock the tower over. And don't knock it over until I say. And don't hit your brother for knocking it over--that's what spankings are for. And don't hit your brother for answering the question and getting to knock it over. You'll get a turn to knock it over too--if you pay attention.

2) Large in Stature: Mom holds the bingo boards. Every time the boys hear a word they think is on the bingo board, they ask mom, she checks and if found, says "Gimme 5 sit ups!" or jumping jacks, or push ups, or whatever. The boys comply and wait excitedly for the next word.

3) Candy Quiz: Candy is still an intregal part of conference, but doled out a little less liberally. The boy is required to answer a question about a preceding talk. If he can do it, he gets candy.

Another one we didn't try, but I'm thinking for next conference I should have my boffers made (they're these padded swords re-enacters use to play kings and knights and safely beat each other with) and it would be called:

4) Helaman's Army: If they answer a question correctly or something, they get to smack their brother with the boffer. Or something of the sort. I need to figure this one out, because it may lead to more chaos than it staunches.

The cups worked pretty well. After a while we gave up on the rules and they just quietly built the tower while answering my questions (for candy) about the speakers, then knocking the tower down (not so quietly) and starting over. Large in Stature was short-lived.

I've said it before and I've truly come to believe that Mormon included all the details of the wars and such primarily because it would get boys to read the book. Seriously, I know it's all supposed to remind us of our spiritual war, but women can grasp that with a little less graphic violence, thank you. But, like Mormon, I say use what you've got. And I have candy!