Hobbies

When it comes to hobbies, there are, I think, roughly three types of people in this world:

• Those who have no hobbies and depend on other people and mass media to amuse themselves.
• Those who have one or two hobbies that they obsess over.
• Those who have more hobbies than time and who could keep themselves busy indefinitely with their many interests.

The reason I’ve been thinking about this is that the kids and I talked about hobbies today. I explained to them that their dad and I fall into the third category. There is no end to the things that he and I interested in, and if we didn’t have jobs and other responsibilities, we’d happily while away our hours on our many hobbies. Then I pointed out that they each had several hobbies of their own. Livia likes reading, art, and bike riding, for example. Marshall likes reading, Minecraft, and photography.

They agreed with me on my assessment of their hobbies, but they told me that they each had one other notable hobby: making life difficult for their sibling. Livia called that hobby “Marshall,” and Marshall called it “Livia.” I told them that that was not a legit hobby. They assured me that it was. Ugh. Kids!