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"My uncle wanted to know what was wrong with my sons. Tired from all the holiday celebrations, my boys were sitting quietly on Christmas night watching my uncle&amp;#039;s grandkids, who are pre-schoolers, tape papers to his walls and sneak cookies off of trays.   &amp;quot;Why aren&amp;#039;t they running around?&amp;quot; he wondered. Because they&amp;#039;re tweens, that&amp;#039;s why. And when tweens get tired, they don&amp;#039;t run around. They sit and whisper into their mother&amp;#039;s ear, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m bored.&amp;quot;  This year, my boys left their gifts right where they opened them\u2014even the pump-them-up rocket guns that promised to &amp;quot;shoot 50 feet in the air!&amp;quot; This year we didn&amp;#039;t have to put together robots, or climb under the couch to retrieve Legos and batteries. Or get rockets off the roof. This year was the year my boys crossed over from being little kids to being big kids. And it confused my uncle.  Not so long ago, my boys ran up and down the stairs, played on the treadmill, spread their gifts across the living room floor and stole cookies off of trays.  They jumped on the beds, fought over presents and managed to finagle way too many desserts out of various family members.  They spread crayons and papers on the kitchen floor, jumped in the pile of wrapping paper and refused to eat anything but rolls for dinner.   They didn&amp;#039;t get tired, but we did. They were little kids.  But this Christmas, they sat. They didn&amp;#039;t ask us to put together any of their toys. My 10-year-old campaigned to get his new electronic keyboard out from under all the gifts in the car, while my nine-year-old yawned, sitting glassy-eyed as my uncle&amp;#039;s grandkids tugged on their mother&amp;#039;s sweater.   &amp;quot;C&amp;#039;mon, Mommy,&amp;quot; they implored. And their mommy followed them to go see the artwork they&amp;#039;d taped on the bathroom door.  &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m bored,&amp;quot; my son whispered.  And just like that, the little kid years were over. And frankly, that&amp;#039;s okay with me. I have a feeling it&amp;#039;s okay with my uncle, too. After all, he&amp;#039;s got a lot of tape to scrape off the moldings this month. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/parenting/a2199/good-grief-012208/?src=shelter_footer>