Diabolo!!

Oh my gosh, what an exciting day for Maxwell! The kids in school here really have nothing to play with at recess. They are given access to a small, open, paved area but do not have playground equipment, balls, etc like they do in the U.S. In fact, they are usually forbidden to play with balls as their play space is really quite small for a large number of kids. So, they tend to gravitate toward "old-fashioned" games that don't require much space or equipment. Marbles has been a favorite for all time but just recently, we have seen an emergence of the use of diabolos. These are a kind of juggling toy where a spool is tossed and twirled on a string. It's usually the bigger elementary school kids that play with these as they are quite difficult. Calvin's age group is totally into it so he purchased one a couple of months ago. Max has been coveting it ever since and has been slowly gaining his skills with borrowed diabolos on the playground. Today was the day that he had finally saved enough of his allowance to purchase his own. Wow, you would have thought he died and went to Heaven. He and I walked down to the shopping district to buy the toy. As we walked, we enjoyed taking pictures of the pretty buildings and watching as they set up the Christmas market. After we made our purchase however, we could not get home fast enough! He could not wait to adjust the string to the right length and get busy playing. He then proceeded to play with and without Calvin for hours and hours. His arms are now so tired that he could hardly eat dinner. Now, he can't wait to go to school in the morning so he can show his friends what he has!