I'm the mommy to 2 girls and a boy, the girls are 18 and 6, the boy is smack dab in the middle at 12.
The last couple of weeks I've started on my Spring cleaning and have now finished all 3 kids rooms, the girls were the first to be done. In each one I found the typical girl stuff, make-up, hair pretties, magazines such as Seventeen and Teen People, Victoria had the usual teen girl stuff, dead flowers given from a date months ago, perfumes without the lids and a dozen different lotions, Reagan's room was full of stuffed toys, Littlest Pet Shop paraphernalia, tiny shoes belonging to Polly Pockets, and play make up... everything looked familiar and smelt as it should and then it was onto the 'Boy' room and Oh BOY !! The first thing that really hit me was the smell, I'm not even kidding, even a clean tween boy smells stinky, what is it with that ? I do remember reading an article a while back when Victoria was about 13, how Mother Nature bascally works her magic with the pheromones of a daughter making her smell disgusting to the father... interesting stuff huh ? So I'm wondering if the same works for the mothers of sons, because I'll tell you what, if a boy every approached me smelling like that when I was dating, I'd have sprinted in the opposite direction. I know he showers everyday, I know he uses deodorant and body spray and I know his clothes are always clean, so what the heck is the deal ? Before I could begin I had to open up a couple of windows, thank God it was a nice day.
Then I couldn't help but notice the other differences, I was finding things that I was totally oblivious to, things that looked like they belonged to something but what I have no clue. Instead of Polly Pocket shoes, I was finding miniature pedals, instead of little accessories belonging to plastic puppies I was finding teeny tiny wheels, there was no make up but these weird little metal and plastic things about 1 1/2 inches long, turned out they were mini screwdrivers for the mini pedals and mini wheels to make mini BMX bikes and skateboards.
There were no magazines with innocuous names like Seventeen but a magazine named Thrasher.. HELLO !! I had to make sure my son wasn't getting the big boys to buy his magazines, so I flipped through only to find pages and pages of skateboarders, BMX'ers, dirt bikers and other extreme sports. Everything just looked and smelt foreign.
When I was pregnant with Victoria I really thought she was going to be a he, I couldn't even imagine raising a girl, now I'm seeing that I am so better cut out for girls than boys, I understand what the girls are talking about, when Ben tells me how he just achieved a 360, just did a perfect kick flip or did a 6 stair downtown, I just nod my head, smile and add lots of encouraging sounds, making a mental note to research what he just said so that I can at least look like I know what he is talking about next time.
However the one good thing about stepping into the cave of the unknown this time was that I made a collection of treasures that I'd found and asked what each one was for and became educated. The next time I step on another of those damn plastic screwdriver thingies, I'll know it can go out in the garbage, because seriously you only need one screwdriver of each size, not a million. Thanks to Thrasher I now know that when he tells me he did a 6 step downtown, he'd better watch out and it had better be a Sunday when the govt buildings are closed and when he tells me he did a perfect 360 I can be totally 100% genuinely impressed because I know I sure as heck would never be able to launch myself and a skateboard up in the air and turn a full 360 degrees without falling in a huge heap and breaking every bone in my body.
The cost of some new air deodorizer ? $6
The cost of a new curtain rod ? $4
The cost of a new blanket ? $20
The cost of Thrasher magazine ? Priceless... I now know what my son is talking about and we can really communicate until he becomes a full fledged teen that is and forgets that to communicate we have to use words, not grunts.
