Some time ago, friend and writer, Jenny Hansen put me on to a great new blog site called, ‘Blunt Moms,’ written by a happy collective of mommas telling it like it is.
The first post I read was by author, Anne Sawan, ‘Moms of boys, you are my people.’ Of course, this got my attention as I have three sons.
The post was so hilarious I split my jeans laughing. I subscribed the same day.
Anne Sawan wrote of discovering her boys running around on their icy roof in winter, ‘inches away from slipping off and cracking their skulls,’ and how she had to have ‘a large glass of red wine’ that night to get over the experience.
I laughed in the grip of my own painful memories. My three sons have made my hair go grey which is why I have to dye it now, I’m sure! I look back and shudder! Like the time, Sam decided to take his plastic tricycle for a ride down the middle of our road at the age of three. He escaped our property on his trike, lifted his feet and whizzed down the middle of the street, with me running behind shouting, “Stop! Stop! Come back!”
Sam rode through a T-junction and kept pedalling into oncoming traffic as if his little life depended on it. I was screaming and running, braced for the impact, which fortunately never came. I managed to catch up with him before the cars reached us. His guardian angels must take home plenty of overtime pay, let me tell you.
‘Boys are just a different breed from girls,’ wrote Sawan.
I couldn’t agree more.
My sister’s darling daughter used to present herself to her mother each evening at six o’clock exactly, so the legend goes, and say, “I’m ready for bed, mama.” How I envied my sister! My boys would still be strangling each other somewhere, with one or the other moments away from an elbow in the eye, getting somehow mortally injured and screeching with pain. The need for me to dash them to A&E remained an ever present threat always hanging in the air. Or they’d be trying the old can’t-hear-you routine, making me repeat myself a dozen times. Oh, yes, boys are different, all right.
What goes on in a household of boys?
A lot of yelling goes on in a household of boys.
A lot of dressing up.
A lot of play-fighting.
What else goes on in a household of boys?
There are birthday parties that would put adult all-night ravers to shame.
There are more play fights.
There are suspicious silences.
What else goes on in a household of boys?
A lot of wild air guitar.
A lot more spontaneous play-fighting.
A lot of spontaneous posturing.
Did I mention the singing? They sing a lot as well.
Then, you wake up one day, and suddenly, the boys start growing in great dashes for the ceiling. You’ve reached the dreaded milestone, the teenage years, when things get really interesting. Incredibly, they become even louder.
They start traversing an emotional rollercoaster.
My youngest two are fifteen and twelve now, and sometimes they come home like black thunder clouds. I’m left wondering where my darling kids have gone. At present, my teen is having non-compliant days, which we’re putting down to the tiredness pre-Christmas, and my tween is having flare-ups of angst-ridden stroppiness, which we’re putting down to hormones. These days we get to see a lot of over excited noises, or dark looks and grouchy faces. It’s a vaguely scary rollercoaster up in here.
Nevertheless, once the storm blows over, they come straight back to being loving and helpful again. It is a noisy, unpredictable, rambunctious form of chaos living with sons, and yet, I am here to report; it is possible to live harmoniously with them.
Besides in the words of Anne Sawan, in the end, “we laugh knowing our boys are going to be marrying your girls, and one day, if they’re lucky, they may just have little boys of their own.”
That’s called karma, folks!
Talk to you later.
Keep on Creating!
Yvette K. Carol
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‘Raising children is one of the most significant things that a person can do. It matters a tremendous amount, and women who choose to do it should be held in high esteem. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was a token of great respect for a man to address an older woman as “mother.” That might be a good thing to bring back.’ ~ Paul Rosenberg
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Yvette Carol, Author 