Little Boys

                                                                       

                                                                                  

    It has been my experience as a mother of two little boys that are not so little anymore, and a grandmother of two little boys eight, and five years of age, that little boys are unique creatures. You can no more know what is going on in their little noggins than you can read the mind of a jellyfish. Little girls and big girls are fairly easy to understand because generally they verbally, “let it all hang out,” so to speak.  The eye rolling, it seems to start three hours after birth. The sighing, the weeping, the “I hate you! You’re so mean,” that starts around 11 or 12.  I could go on and on about the years of teenage hood but honestly, I had two daughters as well as two boys and at this point, I am just too tired to relive the teenage drama of girls. Even with all of the above girls in my opinion are easier to figure out. I guess it could be that because I am one I can understand where they are coming from. (Insert eye rolling here.)

      Little boys. I believe the age-old question is, “why do little boys do the things they do?”  If you could just get a glimpse into their little brains, what would you see? At times, I think you would see. Nothing. Absolutely nothing, empty space between their ears. I remember years ago a local church were we lived had a marriage conference. My husband and I attended. The thing that has stayed with me after all these years was that when you ask a man what he is thinking about and he says nothing, he really is thinking about nothing. I ask my husband if that was true and he informed me that it was! I asked him how on earth can you think about nothing! How can you just sit there with an empty mind? He informed me it was not that hard. Apparently, God gave this skill to men. I do not understand it; however, they seem to practice it regularly.

      Now days there are people trying to say that little boys and little girls are just alike.  That there should be no traditional gender roles. I have thought about this, because as a woman my mind is never empty. I have concluded that these people have never raised children. Although my girls could climb trees like monkeys and enjoyed playing in the dirt with trucks and the like, they were still girls. They liked their Barbie’s and pretty clothes. They dressed up in their play clothes complete with old-fashioned bonnets and rode their horses for hours pretending they were Mary and Laura Ingalls. Not once did my girls come into the yard with rusted metal springs tied to their feet from an old pickup seat they found in the dump and attempt to jump over the gate. Not once did I find them trying to fashion a submarine out of a used pressure tank so that they could explore the depths of the windmill overflow pond. I never saw them come upon a garden rake laying on the ground and with excitement leap upon it hollering, “ I wonder if this really happens like on cartoons!” As the rake handle whacks them square between the eyes and they sport a goose egg on their forehead for a week. I never saw my girls squash eggs down the seat of each other’s britches. And not once did they ever make an acetylene bomb from a tide detergent bottle, throw it in the windmill overflow, climb to the top of the windmill and shoot it with a 22 rifle. I am not a highly educated woman but it does not take a college degree or even an eighth grade diploma to know that boys and girls are different.  God made them that way for a purpose. Maybe God gave men the ability to have an empty mind so it is well rested before they go out and conquer things. Who knows?  

    Last week my phone rang. It was my oldest son. He is the father of three, the oldest a little boy and two little girls. Five, three and one year old. I asked him what he was doing. He said sitting on the porch. Then there was a big sigh, and silence. I asked him what was wrong, because all Mothers know that big sighs and silences with their boys mean the world has tipped and all is not as it should be in their universe. If it had been, a daughter calling there would have been squawking as soon as the phone was answered and I would have known three seconds after I picked it up what horrible disaster had befallen her and that life, as we all know it has completely ended. I asked again, what was wrong. Long sigh then, “Keagan cut off all of Tallies hair.” Now Tallie is the size of a large gnat. She is a tiny petite little thing and her Mama has spent three years trying to cultivate the wispy blonde hair on her head. She has just graduated to having a small ponytail. Oh dear! He explained that they had been playing in the playhouse and when called to come in Tallie arrived shorn like a sheep. I was thinking to myself surely he is exaggerating a little. Then her mama sent me a picture. There was no exaggeration. That poor baby was peeled like an onion. Little tufts of blond hair poked up here and there pink scalp shining. Bless her heart.  More silence on the phone. Another big sigh. Then the words every parent of a boy child has muttered time and time again..”What was he thinking?” I had to laugh and answered him, “he’s a little boy, probably nothing!”

God Bless and Happy Trails