Team Boy!

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 ordered, "fix my hair!" I just stared at her dumbfounded. 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 my attention, that not only are their cat & dog people, there are girl & boy people. Take my mother for instant. Girl Person. She raised two lovely, delicate girls. So when my fist son was born, she was very doting, but naïve.

One day when Nicholas was three, I was talking with her 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 opened 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 of 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 mastered 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 now 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.