Little Boys

Having had two girls first and then the "surprise" arrival of our son, we didn't really know what we were getting into with this whole "boy" thing.  You'd think my husband would have clued me in but other than being a "man" which means he communicates nothing that he's not specifically asked about, there's the "selective amnesia" thing. He only remembers being good. Yeah, right.

I love my son and am thankful that God chose to bless us with this addition to our family.  I love that I get to experience the joys of parenting both girls and a boy.  Some days though, I'm ready to trade him in for another girl.


I knew from the moment he was born he was different from my girls. He even smelled different.  I mean literally smelled different.  I knew instantly the moment he peed, I could just smell it. Boy pee smells different from girl pee even as babies.   I never knew that.  Weird, right?  Then there was the always actively alert way he had about him.  If he was tired and hungry he'd slump on me, but awake and wanting to know what's going on, he was stiff as a board holding, himself back from leaning in to me.

Then there was the climbing onto everything and getting into everything phase.  I've had a few crazy posts out of the antics of my son between trying to juggle catching him as he climbed the fireplace to get at the fish to trying to sit on top of the t.v. to having to completely remove the toilet so we could get the large rubber duck unstuck.

The girls -  never once did they climbed up on anything or flushed anything down the toilet.

If that wasn't enough, as soon as he got old enough to be interested in things like outlets, he removes the screws with his thumbnail.  HIS THUMBNAIL!  He told me "I got shocked, mommy, just a little.. lot's of times."  Note this is when he's supposed to be old enough so that we don't need to have the outlet safety plugs in anymore (he'd just take them out anyways).  So we've got missing screws from all the hall outlets.

So our thinking is... okay he's inquisitive.  He wants to take things apart so we should channel it by giving him old electronic items and let him take that apart.  Okay, great idea.  No, not really.  Once he took apart what we gave him he decided wanted to keep going so he took apart all his toys.  We now hide the mini screwdriver set.  He finds it while we're in bed and whatever electronics in the drawer like my old cell phone, and my MP3 player, they quickly bite the dust.

My dad and brother think it's funny so they want to give us more old things for him to take apart.  We say no, or rather, I take it and hide it away.

The girls - sure they think it's cool to take apart stuff but they never do it.

Then there's the laundry.   Okay, my girls are rough on their pants, especially the knees from crawling around the floor but O, he all but mutilates his clothes.  As far as his play clothes go, okay fine go crazy, get muddy because I'd rather have him outside digging in the dirt enjoying good old fashioned fun than stuck on the couch playing video games.

But when it comes to his uniform clothes, that's another story. I feel like an idiot at school as I see my boy take off across the playground and literally hurl himself into the gravel that surrounds the jungle gym because I'm the mom saying... "try to keep clean".   The duty supervisor (a dad) looks at me in surprise and laughs. Okay, he's a boy, I get it but couldn't he at least stay clean until first bell?  Does he have to smear mud and dirt on his collar (how he does that I don't know) and get his knees all wet?

Sheesh.  Every day he comes home and his shirt is dirty from hem to collar.   Sometimes it's even on his back.   I have used so much stain remover in the last year and half he's been in school that I should get stock options.

The girl's shirts?  I almost never have to use the stain remover on their shirts.

Besides all that, he's just rough on stuff.  Rough on his bed.  His dresser has had to be repaired six times. He's on his second backpack for this school year.  He takes his uniform sweater and ties it across the monkey bars and swings down the bars with it.  It's a $45.00 sweater.  We only have one because it's a $45.00 sweater.  Made of money we are not.  It's a huge sacrifice to have these kids in this school so it's pretty hard not to be the snarky mom on the playground getting annoyed at her kid for abusing his stuff.

His most recent thing, well it's probably not recent, is to throw and swing his backpack around.  I'm pretty sure he must jump on it at some point because he managed to break two of the easy lunchbox sets I use for his lunch.

On the other hand, he's the only one of my three children that I can calm the storm by simply offering a hug. That even at six and crying at the table because he thought I was punishing him, I can offer him a momma hug  and he nods yes and gives me a warm tight hug and feels better.

Out of my three children, he's the one that's the most sensitive to yelling.  He hates it.

Once when I was driving him home from pre-school, we were listening to someone playing the piano on the radio. I saw that he was crying and he told me the music was sad.

He gets this funny little side smile thing going on when he's super pleased about something but doesn't think it's cool to show it.

He loves to dress up in anything and will even suffer the girls to dress him up just so they'll play with him.

He rolls his eyes and heaves a heavy sigh as they argue about whose turn it is to marry him next but he's secretly pleased they are fighting over him.

He lets the girls tie him to trees, fences, posts, you name it.  He thinks it's fun.

That's my boy and I guess I wouldn't have him any other way.  He just better grow up to be an engineer to make up for all the destroyed toys and electronics.

Zeemaid