Living
with Boys
By
Tiffany Lewis
Living
with boys means you set out on a jog and end up standing in
front of a construction site for 20 minutes while a Caterpillar
dumps dirt. Living with boys means you have to teach your
son not to spit on the floor, not to spit on you, not to spit
on the couch. Living with boys means you go through a lot
of food. And most of it ends up on the floor, or on their
shirt. Living in a house full of boys means you do most of
the cleaning, but can’t tell it’s getting done. You spend
your days talking about fire engines and outer space, and
your nights picking up balls and sneakers. When the Sears
catalog arrives you sit down as an entire family and ogle
over the circular saws, riding lawnmowers, monkey wrenches
and pressure washers. You realize that before you had boys
you didn’t even know what a monkey wrench was.
Living with boys means less crying, more
yelling. Nothing pink in the closet unless it’s been stained
with Jell-o. You chase forklifts at Home Depot and hang out
in the tool aisle. Everything is “cool.” You take vitamins
to build strong muscles. There’s no push to potty-train because
a boy could sit in a dirty diaper all day. Sometimes your
house resembles a dirty diaper. It always smells like one.
You tell your boys scripture stories, and
the only things they internalize are the bows and arrows and
knives and swords. You never realized the scriptures were
so violent. You begin to edit the Ammon-chopping-off-arms
story.
The cameras and computers have been placed
on the highest shelves possible. Your 18-month-old knows
how to work the DVD player. You are not surprised. The can
opener has become a makeshift power shovel, your favorite
tweezers are in bed with your son, who insists they’re his
forklift, and you haven’t seen your salad tongs in weeks.
As a mother of boys you are a living jungle
gym. Affection is expressed in tackles and tooth marks. You
have to set down ground rules for how long your son is allowed
to pin down his little brother. You get excited to see a
cement truck, even when you’re alone. You suddenly realize
you need to brush up on how a car’s engine runs. The bottom
of the stroller is filled with sticks, sand and rocks. You
know your pediatrician’s number by heart, and you’re on a
first-name basis with the ER technicians.
In a house of boys you worry because you
know your future is doomed with video games, Saturdays at
the church tying knots for Cub Scouts, and that in-your-face
obnoxious stage that lasts from about age seven to seventeen.
They will morph from Bob the Builder to Harry Potter
to Star Wars to Lord of the Rings, which means
you will, in the span of your life, be attacked by tool belts,
bewitched by wands, chopped by light sabers and Hobbitsed
from head to foot. You can foresee broken bones and knocked-out
teeth. These “little angels” racing around in their Spider-Man
underwear will probably burn down the house.
And you sit on your crusty, food-covered
couch long after those boys are in bed. You pick up a Cheerio
off the floor and pop it in your mouth. You flip through
“The Truck Book” and hum “The Wheels on the Bus.”
A house full of boys. You realize you wouldn’t want it
any other way.
