How Many Men?

It's been interesting having Damon home this week, the week school begins.

King's Beach, Caloundra, January 9

Interesting because Damon has now learned WHY the 8 PM bedtime is nonnegotiable and WHY all three boys shouldn't sleep in the same bed. 

Interesting because he now sees WHY I snap up the half-price school shorts and sweatshirts when they go on sale months before we need them.

It's also been a lot of fun watching him send the boys to do errands.  Like yesterday when it took all three of them to go down and hunt for the screwdriver.  Which not one of them found.

Or when he expected them to know where to find their own school clothes.  As they were standing on them.

Wet N Wild, Gold Coast, January

Honestly, sometimes you just give up and get Ryan to help out instead.

Leading me to come up with a lightbulb joke I know I am probably not the first woman to think of.

"How many man does it take to screw in a lightbulb?"

"Only one.  But you need a woman to find it for him."

Ian.  Yesterday.

I'd better go and find out where he's misplaced the baby!

Beavis and Butthead

"Poopy."

"Poopy poopy."

heh heh heh heh heh

"Poopy head."

heh heh heh

"Poopy ON your head."

heh heh heh heh heh heh heh

The problem is that this is a private conversation. Aidan and Matthew are quietly playing together in their room. They aren't doing anything wrong. They aren't fighting, bothering anyone, or using inappropriate language, really.

I DON'T like them to use that word in public, and I don't like them to use it repeatedly as a dumb joke.

But, I'm not in the room.

They find this conversation totally fascinating.

"Head on your poopy."

heh heh heh he heh heh

The weird thing is that I now finally get Beavis and Butthead.

Great. My boys laugh like Beavis and Butthead.

With the same classy sense of humor.

I don't get it.

But they've got a rapt audience in eachother.

And most of the 3 to 4 year old viewing audience.

Girls too, at this stage.

While I don't get the comedy, I do get a kick out of watching them delight and amuse one another. They are bonding.

Male-bonding.

I don't get it at my age. Why should it be any different at theirs?!

heh heh heh heh heh

Testosterone Domination

We honestly never stood a chance, Ryan and I.

I hadn't noticed it was truly gone until the other night, when I thought it'd be nice to watch an old VHS tape I'd dug up while cleaning out the cupboard. Cinderella. Whitney Houston's Rodgers and Hammerstein version, starring a black Cinderella, a Philippino Prince Charming and a cast of multiracial families - oh and lots of singing and dancing. Good fun, racial harmony and romance all in one. Pink. Polifically correct, lots of fun, and most of all pink. Girly pink.

I remembered when we bought if for Ryan, for Christmas right before she turned four. And then we gave it to her early, at Thanksgiving time, when she was suffering from a bad fall off a tricycle at kindergarten and a bout of the stomach flu. We'd had to take her to the emergency room when she started vomitting a few hours after the fall just to be certain. And, bruised around the nose and eyes, she looked just as terrible as she felt. She was really sick.

And so I whipped out the Cinderella movie as a special treat and sat with my daughter on the couch for two days, cuddling and bonding, and rinsing out the throw up bucket placed strategically at the foot of the couch. I don't know what the boys (Andrew and Damon) did. Could it be possible that even miserable, screaming Andrew just wasn't as much of a handful as the three of them together are now? He was only one, but he was walking at seven months. What WAS he doing that entire time?

There is no forgetting them now. Mad whirling dervishes of almost maniacal energy, bursting forth after days of enforced hibernation due to rain. These boys need to get out!

The other option appears to be street-dancing in front of the TV to a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. Damon is not amused. Neither am I. This is a LOVE story, for crying out loud. SIT DOWN and WATCH THE TV! Did I really just say that?!

The three of them were really cute popping and spinning and striking a poses. But it just wasn't the same.

There are just too many of them.

I was never a girly girl. Ryan either. More of a jeans and T-shirt kind of crowd. With horses rather than dresses. But still, it'd be nice to have SOME sort of feminine aura in the house. Scented candles that aren't carried around the house due to some sort of male fascination with fire. Bubble baths that aren't used as a competition to see who can slide down the side of the tub into the bubbles the farthest. Or the fastest. Or whatever. With the end result being bubbles on the floor, bruised kids in the tub, and oh yeah, no scented candles since they were carried off for fire worship just the other morning. Forget the feminine aura. Peace and quiet would be nice too.

All action, all the time. Just what I wanted about twenty years ago. Surrounded by loads of interesting men, just dying to impress me.

Watch what you wish for.

Boys Will Be Boys

I remember my daughter, Ryan, running to greet me one afternoon when she was 18 months old with a fistful of flower petals in her little palm. She - and her father- were beaming with pride. "How beautiful!" I dutifully exclaimed, before she pretended to sneeze and scattered the petals all over the floor. Like snot. So much for father-daughter bonding.

Definitely a guy thing, and it soon lost its charm, but now I have three - no sorry, four of them in the house, and the times are getting ugly.

As we recently sat down to a family meal - all six of us at the table and the dog at our feet - Ryan and I were entertained by a cacaphony of fake belches from all sides of the table. Okay - two fake belchers; Andrew by now has mastered the art of the real thing. It would have been disgusting if it wasn't so funny. The little guys are obviously so proud of themselves. And they think they're hysterical. Belch. Hysterical laughter. Belch. Hysterical laughter. They could have amused each other for hours. The were like toddler versions of a fraternity house. I finally put a stop to it, imagining them all in ten years, each of them the size of my husband, doing the same thing. Lovely.

I've never understood humor based on bodily functions - the so called poop and fart jokes. But it seems to be ingrained in my men at least. How did it start that when I asked one of the twins if he had a poop in his diaper, that he turns to me and says, quite clearly, no, MOMMY has a poopy? And laughs and laughs and laughs. I just don't get it, but the boys consider it the height of entertainment. A "who tooted" dialogue can go around for hours. "Matthew tooted." "No Aidan tooted." "Ryan tooted." "Andrew tooted." You get the level of sophistication at our house. I still don't get why I'm always the punch line, but it has the rest of them rolling on the floor - and Ryan rolling her eyes. Thank God, I have one girl.

I'm waiting for puberty, but so far Andrew isn't impressed with the boy- girl thing. When we recently let him watch Pirates of the Caribbean, the last one, we were worried about graphic images of gore and violence. He hid it eyes for a few scenes at the end - the ones where Orlando Bloom and Kiera Knightley make out. "I just can't see this AGAIN," he exclaimed in disgust.

But there ARE signs. At the swimming pool the other day, a family of four joined us at the kiddy pool. The parents looked to be about 45, the teenage daughter about 16and then there was a two year old granddaughter, I'm going to assume was the 16 year old's niece. Both women - mom and daughter - were strikingly beautiful. Really, I could barely keep my eyes from them. And they had breasts the size of Dolly Parton. I tried not to stare.

My boys were checking out the family too. I figured they had their eyes on the two year old. But no. Aidan finally walked over to me and very somberly reached up to grab my breast. "Booby", he stated, and then stared back over at the family, still holding on to reassure himself that he too, had some, if a small part, of the treasure.

Whatever. I still think our family can take them on the fart jokes.