I chose to have my brother and his best friend, who are both eleven years old, play leapfrog on our front lawn in my hometown of Berwyn, IL. I wanted my brother to ask more of the kids who live on our block to play, but he apparently was embarrassed and barely agreed to play at all, so I took what I could get. I got them to go outside and right before I had them start playing, a tall man who looked to be about 50 years old was just walking down the block and passed our house. He kind of just stared at us and then kept walking. I thought it was weird, but there are quite a few "weird" people who live in B-town so I just ignored him. I got them to start playing leap frog, and the man had walked farther down the block by then, but he turned around again and just stood there and stared at us some more. So I stared him down, but that did not seem to phase him. This happened about 3 or 4 more times and I have concluded that something was wrong with him or that he was more than likely one of the many perverts who roam the streets of Berwyn on a daily basis.

So I would say that my leapfrog experience was a little bit more negative than most of my other classmates. However, even though it was a little annoying and disgusting that we were clearly being watched in a very creepy way, we all found it to be a little bit funny as well. And I know that my brother and his friend did have fun for the one minute that they were playing. It also made me wonder if I would have felt like I was too old to do something like that when I was only eleven years old. It kind of made me feel a little disappointed actually that my brother thought he was too old to be doing something like playing leapfrog with his friend because now I can see that he is starting to grow up into the dreaded pre-teen. I could tell that they had fun in the moment, so there was still a little sliver of childish fun left, but I can see that it will soon be gone and to replace my cute little brother will be a mopey, awkward, teenager who hates his life and locks himself in his room or basically lives at his friends' houses like I did in those days. And while all of this is happening, I am going to be away at school for weeks at a time and he will probably be different every time I come back home. I guess my leapfrog experiment made me slightly emotional! But I'm glad I got to do it, because it got me to spend a little time with my brother while I was home, and from the conclusion I have reached, he probably won't want to spend that much time with me as he continues to grow up.