I was trolling through Facebook and ran across my friends post. Like me,
she has two boys. Unlike me she is pregnant with twins, more boys! Apparently
people keep asking her if she wants a girl. As if it’s a choice.
Personally, I wouldn't know what to do with a girl.
Case in point: My niece came to me one day with several hair things and
was like "fix my hair!" I just stared at her dumb founded. Mornings
are easy at my house, with boys, a couple of swipes with a brush and you’re good.
This was more challenging. Not only did I have to brush through the
tangled mop on my niece’s head, but to construct some kind of topiary with it.
How did it end up in brambles anyhow? It was quite straight and tidy when she
went to bed.
Perhaps there were fairies frolicking in it during the night. Nonetheless,
I bravely grasped the brush and attempted to tame it. A half hour later, she
ended up with almost straight pigtails. And I was pondering if it was too early
for wine.
It has come to me, that not only are there cat & dog people, there are
girl & boy people. Take my mother for instance. She raised two lovely,
delicate girls. So when my fist son was born, she was very dotting but naïve.
One day when Nicholas was three, we were talking in the garage. Nicholas
walks up to Grandma with his grubby fist outstretched where he had been digging
in the dirt. She automatically held out her hand to receive whatever treasure he
had found. His fingers open and a brown spider drops into my mom’s hand and
immediately runs up her arm. There was much screaming. *sigh*
And with boys, come boy scouts. I had never been camping in my life, but
being a mom of a boy, you have to escape your comfort zone. So I became adept
at putting up a tent, and changing clothes inside a sleeping bag. I still have
scars from chigger bites, but good memories as well. A bad boy scout memory: running a weekend concession stand at Nascar,
but therapy has helped.
Speaking of therapy, boys are harder to potty train than girls. My
youngest son, was almost four before he managed both tasks. After discussing my
potty training woes with his doctor, he recommended a therapist for my son. So…
he would get to play in a play room
with his brother; while I discussed poo for an hour with a stranger. She
explained that boys don’t have as many nerve endings ‘down there’ as girls and
that boys don’t always pick up on the subtle clues. (This has also explained a
lot of my dates.) We made up a poo chart with a Gameboy as the grand prize.
Bribery works every time.
Shopping for clothes is fairly easy, no accessories needed. My oldest son
is ‘sensitive’ so I shop for him by feel. My youngest would wear anything. I do
have a major complaint of clothing stores. Most unisex stores have three racks
for boy clothes and 20 for girls. Really?
My boys are older now, and my sister has one of each. Recently, my mom
came back from a shopping trip exhausted from chasing after my nephew.
I just smiled, I’m Team Boy.
