Boys Will Be Boys

Being the only girl growing up I always kind of thought I knew everything about boys. (I also felt like I knew what it was to be an only child - just with more battle scars.) Turns out I was wrong on both fronts. I get new glimpses into the male psyche every day through the four male minds I am now surrounded by. Most of the time the glimpses I get are endearing, but some of them simply reaffirm how completely different our two genders are.

Glimpse #1 - Boys on Cleaning

Me- You know what I hate? (not waiting for an answer) Dirty dishes left in the sink.

Tyler- You know what I love? That this sink is big enough to hold so many dirty dishes.

Glimpse #2 (literally, ha, ha) - Little Boys on Hygiene

Upon walking into the bathroom I discovered an un-flushed toilet - apparently this is the final stage in potty training, even my oldest (not the grown-up boy, thankfully) forgets this all too important step! (Just let it go children!) HOWEVER, instead of being upset I was overjoyed at the fact that at least whomever forgot to flush, used toilet paper! Hooray for small miracles.

Glimpse #3 - Boys on Onomatopoeia

You know how little (and big) boys use sound effects for everything? Half of Nick's names for things when he first started talking were really just the sounds those things made. Now he's progressed enough to have the following one-sided conversation with me:

"Mom, dis so funny. Gaba Hud (Jabba the Hutt) is all 'Bwaa, uhh'. An den Wuke's yike 'Whaauun-Whaauun' (light saber noises, I think). Den Tooey's (Chewie) all 'Awgghh'. And Gaba goes 'Oooogh! phhhhh!'. and dat's so funny. He goes 'Phhhhh!' Yike dat."

And Mommy 'goes' "just smile and wave, boys, smile and wave", because if I hadn't seen whichever Star Wars movie that scene was from I SO wouldn't have known what that conversation meant. Any boy -Star Wars fan or not - would have.

Glimpse #4 - Boys on Hats

One 'boy' in our house who has great hair can hardly be without his precious baseball hat - ever. If he was having a 'bad hair day' I would cut him some slack. If he were balding I might understand. If he were heading off to, say, play a baseball game I would get it. But, seriously, he gets out of bed in the morning and the hat is on before his feet hit the floor. He's not dressed, why is the hat on? 'Going somewhere', I ask? 'Yeah, downstairs', he says. 'Pants?', I say. No,no, not necessary yet, but the hat is. Today I witnessed him putting the hat on when he was heading to the shower. I cocked my head like a confused hound dog. How does the shirt come off with the hat on? Seriously. He just smiled at me, took the hat off, took the shirt off, and put the hat back on. Is it some sort of grown-up-boy rebellion?

Glimpse #5 - Boys on Hampers

Clothes Hamper: convenient, tidy receptacle for dirty laundry. AND the clothes form a pile adjacent to said hamper. We put a laundry chute in our house thinking the little boys would have SO much fun throwing their dirty clothes down it I would never have to search out their dirty underwear again. That lasted about, mmm, three days. Action figures are much more likely to make the journey down than a pair of jeans. Max actually goes to the effort of shoving all his dirty clothes (except his socks which he shoots into various hidden nooks and crannies) behind the clean clothes hanging in his closet. My biggest boy puts his unmentionables in the hamper and lays the rest of his 'worn clothes' in a pile at the end of our bed because he might wear them again. . . I say (girls against sniffing out the dirty laundry unite!!!) if it's not clean enough to put back with the clean clothes. . . probably not clean enough to wear. Maybe that's just me...

Glimpse #6 - Little boys on Kissing

Even my little Nick now covers his eyes and says, "Ewww" any time anyone kisses in a movie.(Okay, so that's pretty much just Anakin and Padme. . . or, maybe a few others.) I'm quite sure all the little girls of the world just blush and giggle.

In 'real life' even kissing has to have some goal behind it, some undetectable prize. As any purpose for kissing is lost on the little ones Nick has remedied all kissing situations (such as goodnight kisses, owie kisses, etc.) by deciding it's a contest of sorts and pronouncing a winner each time. Don't know what the rules are. Doubt there is a system of points. All I know is that upon being kissed, or delivering a kiss he shoots his hands over his head and shouts, "I WON da KISSING!". Boys.

Glimpse #7 - Boys on Fun

Tyler used to always say "A dogs' happiness is directly related to how dirty they are". So true, and so true also for little boys. Holly and I took the boys with us to ride at the arena today. I planned for their warmth - coats, hats, gloves, and cocoa. I planned for their entertainment - backpacks full of toys / books / you name it. I planned for their tummies - they had cereal, grapefruit, and eggs before we left and three snacks for while we were there. I didn't plan for the dirt factor. Why? Because I'm a girl, and no matter how much time I spend around horses and horsie-places, I would never intentionally get down in the soft, stinky, manure filled dirt. Just wouldn't. Why would anyone. . .unless they were boys. You would think I would have learned by now. We had been riding for maybe ten minutes with the boys safely stowed on the bleachers when Grey called to me. I knew they had been running circles around the bleachers but was still surprised when I looked up to see him covered from head to toe in the extra filthy dirt of a riding arena. I'm not talking 'I got my boots. . . dusty' covered either. I'm talking I'm-not-sure-what-color-his-jeans-used-to-be, didn't-I-just-wash-that-coat, why-does-my-five-year-old-have-a-mustache covered. When I asked him why he was so dirty he simply said, (with an expression of bewildered innocence) "I was rolling". Yes, rolling. Like, 'duh, rolling, Mom'. Of course he's rolling - look at all the dirt! Later in the day he said it was his best day ever. I'm thinking it was the dirt. No wonder they don't like to clean.

All things said, I love my boys, all of them. I love that they are such boys. I love their funny boyish ways. I love that I can see my own ridiculous girlie habits and quirks more clearly through their eyes, and hope I am the better for it.

* photo courtesy Kiera Eve Photography

I'm a Junkie.

The signs - you know you should stop, maybe make dinner or put the kids to bed. So you put it off and then when you get around to doing all the things you should be doing all you can think about is when you can get back to your little addiction. How much longer? Can you take it? Your sleeping suffers because you stay up feeding your craving almost until it's time to wake up. Then when you finally turn off the light to get an hour or two of sleep your mind is too busy to let you rest. At last you see it affecting your family. "What are you doing, Mom?. . .Oh, never mind." And your husband comes home from work wearing vampire fangs just to get your attention. (And does he ever - get your attention, I mean.)



So, I stubbornly refused to touch any of the Twilight books for, hmm, years, I guess. I felt it must be a Buffy rip-off and I was far too loyal a fan of the Buffy / Angel love story (and Joss Whedon) to fall for another lesser vampire storyline. I did the same thing with the Harry Potter mania - Scoffed at the fanatics waiting in droves for their pre-ordered copies of the latest wizarding installment, and then I completely sold out. (Not that that had anything to do with Buffy. ) I read LITERATURE, not pulp-fiction. Sheesh. What a faker I am. As much as I love plod slowly through a multi-layered piece of 'serious ' literature, have I ever been so engrossed that I would literally fly through thousands of pages within a few days because I could-not-put-it-down? (I can stop anytime I want, I swear.) I don't think so. (Well, at least not when a grade hasn't been attached to the reading in some way.)

Bottom line - you can count me among one of the Twilight groupies now. (Dang-it.) Edward's team, of course. Now that the reading frenzy is over though, I'm a little lost. I went through the entire series in a week - Thanksgiving week at that. Now I have that strange feeling of surreal loss that you get when you close the last chapter of the world you've been escaping to and you're just not quite ready to let it go. Whatever shall I do, Wherever shall I go? To the laundry room, I guess.

Farewell Summer. . . Hello Beautiful Fall!

The best thing about living in an area that actually has seasons - in contrast to my years in the desert - is that just when you start to get a little tired of one extreme it's time to move to something else. So now that I've had enough of being dirty, sticky, tired and hot (do keep in mind I have to wear jeans and boots to work no matter what the weather is!) it's finally time to layer on the clothes instead of the sunblock. (So now I'll just be dirty and tired!) I love Fall. The colors are spectacular here - in the mountains especially.

So, before I inundate you with a bazillion fall-color pics I have to say good bye to summer! Farewell my favorite late summer beauties:

P.S. We ran into this guy yesterday and I took a ton of pictures of him (from about thirty feet away - apparently we're not very scary humans - don't know if that's an 'on horseback' thing or a girlie thing). We were waiting for him to stand up and run away, and by the time he finally did my batteries were 'exhausted'. I love that my camera says that, by the way. Poor batteries, are you EXHAUSTED?! Have I been working you too hard? Seeing gorgeous animals like this up close is my other favorite thing about Fall in the mountains!

I seriously don't get how they cruise around with something that massive on their heads. Why don't they tip over?

I'd like to thank the little people

A couple of things I have to get off my chest and I have no time right now - (my three bottomless pits think they're hungry. . .and they think I should take care of that).

1. Dear Juice and Java girls - I love you, not in a freaky way, please don't be scared because I need you. You are so much better than the scary juice nazis that were serving bliss up about, hmm, 14 or 15 years ago. . . when my reliance on you began. Thank you so much for picking my name in your monthly drink-card giveaway. You have made an awful, terrible, horrible couple of days much better. You make the rockin' world go round.

2. Dear Tyler - I love you too, maybe in a freaky way, but please don't be scared, because I need you more than chocolate. BUT my blog obsession does not make me Doogie Houser. I'm sorry, but it just doesn't. AND, now that you've said that, I'm scared that the creepy little Italian Doogie friend is going to crawl in my window as I type and mess up my conclusion.

That's all for now. Must find something to cook. Oh, even worse - the boys have just sounded the 'Foghorn is Loose' alarm. Dang it. Maybe we should have Rooster for dinner.