My Son Thinks He Is A Hedgehog

It's impossible to remember what it's like to be a kid . . . your body lives in a world of a different scale and your brain, though ignorant of much of the world, is flexible and free; case in point, last week I was watching my kids play tag, and my youngest son Ian, who is six, was running along, just behind a pack of kids, and without breaking stride, he flung himself into a forward roll and then-- in one motion, reminiscent of Sonic the Hedgehog-- he popped out of the roll and continued running along . . . and now this has become his signature move while running-- his bit of flair-- but when he was teaching his brother Alex (who is only a year older) how to do the move, Alex looked like he was going to break his neck-- and so I gently told him that he might need to practice on a mat in gym class before doing it like Ian at full bore, and Alex, surprisingly, agreed . . . and he rarely agrees with anything-- but even he realized that he was getting older and not quite as indestructibly creative as his younger brother.