Snips and Snails and Puppydog Tails

Lessons I’ve learned (so far) from living with boys:

• You will find dirty socks everywhere – computer desk, couch cushions, in the sheets, your front passenger seat (yes, really, and let me tell you how nice that smelled after baking in Texas summer heat) – and they will never, ever be paired or even unrolled from the foot removal process.
• Bathroom talk is “appropriate” anywhere… and “funny” always.
• Speaking of bathrooms, aiming is only a suggestion, apparently.
• Press for exact details of their day at your own risk – insisting that “nothing” is an unacceptable answer for what happened at school and that they better come up with something else might get you a very detailed description of the kid who threw up in Algebra… during dinner. Not that I’d know from experience or anything.
• Kissing is universally disgusting from age 3 to about 13…and always when it involves parental units.
• Locker room stink is not just for locker rooms, and it will bring you to your knees.
• Sports shoes are disgusting the minute you leave the store with them.
• It is perfectly acceptable for you to handle their grody (yes, grody), sweaty, stinky socks, underwear, or other articles of clothing to get them clean again, but it is NEVER acceptable to ask them to take a clean and dry load of laundry that might contain one of your bras or a pair of panties from the dryer so that you can switch clothes over.
• It is always time to wrestle.
• TV shows you never thought could even exist become regular viewing – Mecum Auto Auctions, Pit Bulls and Parolees (admittedly, I like this one), anything Bear Grylls, Dating Naked (okay, the Daddy in this house might have discovered that one, and it’s not regular viewing, but really, why is this a show???).
• It is always time for sports.
• You will utter the phrases “do not put your mouth on that,” “do not put your naked butt on that,” “do not shake your naked booties at your brother,” and “Oh my God, light a match/roll down the window/turn on the fan!” more times than you care to admit.
• It is always time to fight bad guys.
• Anything can be a gun or other weapon.
• No matter how uninterested you are in sports at any other time, you WILL scream like a preteen girl at a One Direction concert for that home run, awesome catch, or crazy soccer goal – and you might cry a little, too.
• Drive-by hugs – the kind that almost knock you over – are the best things ever and you will miss them when they outgrow giving them.
• Your heart will unexpectedly catch in your throat when you get random glimpses of what fine young men they are becoming.

I could go on and on; but you get the idea. And I love (almost) every minute of it. 🙂