Thursday, August 19, 2010

All in the Name of Love

Raising boys is tough. It's grueling, messy, stinky, hard work that does, at times, yield much more conversation about bodily functions (re expelling gas from one area or another), fishing, Green Day, wrestling, football, worms, dirt and other odd topics than I ever thought possible. But soldier on I do, because even though they outgrow their shoes faster than you can say "boo" and are fascinated with all ways to torture their little sister, I do love them.

I love their boyness.

I love their rough and tumble.

I love the fact that their voices crack and unexpectedly go up and down causing a chorus of more laughing and even more conversations about puberty than I ever thought I'd have.

I love that they still want to hang out with me, even when they're being weird.

I love that they are mostly caring towards their sister.

They treat the dog like family.

They think their dad is a hero.

And they are adventurous.

But, dear future daughters-in-law, there is one problem I haven't mentioned about boys. And for this disservice I've done to you, I deeply apologize. It's an issue I've been working on since they were out of Pull-Ups and one I just can't seem to drill into their thick skulls. No matter how hard I try (and believe me, I've been this close to threatening that they be allowed to only use the bathroom outside because of it), it's just not working.

So. Embarrassing them on the Internet was my last and hopefully the most effective final straw in the battle I've been engaging with them for years.

I hope it works.


4 comments:

amanda said...

Aha, finally, the seedy underbelly of momming boys ;)

Anonymous said...

I enjoyed reading your blog. Keep it that way.

Anonymous said...

why didn't I think of that???!

Kendra said...

Oh, my god. I am so relieved to see that I'm not the only one dealing with this! Maybe it's that my 4-year-old has no trouble with it (though I have to admit that I clean more puddles off the floor than I'd like), but my 7-year-old has been the reason I have had a wet butt so many times. I am not kidding, I am putting a note up today. Maybe a neon-colored post-it will succeed where nagging and screaming "I don't want to sit in your pee!" have failed. (Just for the record, I'm usually pretty patient. But sitting in pee does get to me after a while.)