Monday, August 22, 2011

Boys vs. Girls

God has a sense of humor. He saw fit to bless me with five boys before torturing me with two girls. Really, my girls are a dream come true and I love all seven of my children with all my heart and soul. I am one of four children. I have two older sisters and a younger brother. My brother and I were very close growing up. We did just about everything together including setting Barbie and GI Joe up on blind dates. If GI Joe wasn't available, then HeMan would step up to the plate. My sisters and I tormented one another until I was old enough to be tolerated.
As a kid I was surrounded by boys. Family was and is a big part of our growing up and we often spent a lot of time with cousins. Even as a child I was a firm believer in the fact that girls can do anything boys can do- even pee standing up which I don't recommend. My brother and our cousins were obsessed with playing army, and I thought it was necessary to join in. They lived in camo and were never caught without a toy gun or knife. We all ran around the house having fake wars with our fake weapons (that is if they felt the need to give me weapons). Being that my position in afore mentioned wars was "nurse," I required very little in the weapons department.
At school, I had lots of friends, but as I got older I discovered that girls are ridiculously dramatic and that boys are more fun. I played sports but still maintained a strong-willed feminine edge. I was very into women's rights in high school and equality. When my husband and I began our family, I realized the reason God kept handing us boys was because girls drove me nuts.
Well, as a typical female, I am never happy with what I have and begged and prayed for a girl. God answers prayers. As a family we welcomed our baby girl with open arms- and spoiled her rotten. The moment we found out it was a girl we went straight to Babys R Us and bought shoes, dresses, and anything pink! I was given three baby showers and by the time our little princess arrived she could want for nothing. When our second daughter arrived, we did the same thing all over again.
Our girls are complete drama queens even at the ages of three years and sixteen months. They are coddled, spoiled, and treated like royalty. I truly fear for my life when puberty hits and the poor things realize that having five older brothers puts a damper on romantic relationships.
To me, boys are much easier to handle. They could care less if plaids don't go with stripes or if purple football socks look hideous with yellow basketball shorts and a red t-shirt. They don't seem to notice their own stench their bodies develop if they haven't showered in five days or if they have worn the same pair of socks until they get trench foot. They don't have melt downs if they can't go shopping or if their favorite outfit isn't clean. Boys put holes in the walls, pee all over the toilet seat, and constantly feel the need to show dominance by wrestling. They burp and fart and think they are hilarious when doing so. Boys don't scream at decibels so high that they break the sound barrier. Boys don't care about visits from the hair fairy or getting stains on their shirts because there were no napkins readily available. Boys destroy things. They eat food in rooms that have been declared off limits for food and drink. They tend to forget where the garbage can is and therefore put trash under their beds, on the table, and in between the sofa cushions. They leave globs of toothpaste all over the sink and forget to re-cap the toothpaste. Boys will stand with the refrigerator door wide open for five full minutes demanding to know where the ketchup is when it is right in front of them.
There are so many things that boys do and girls don't, and vice versa.
Girls demand attention and if they don't get it right away they tend to raise their voices. Girls are tattle tails. It was literally ten minutes ago that my three year old daughter walked into my room to tell me that "her" boys weren't listening and that they needed to put their heads down. I am almost certain that she is going to be a teacher some day. She actually has turned into quite the little snitch, making up things to get her brothers in trouble for. One day she locked the front door while the younger boys were outside and she then came up the stairs telling daddy that her oldest brother did it. Her oldest brother just happened to be sitting there talking to daddy. Needless to say her brother didn't get in trouble and she did.
Girls are soooooo whiny. They cry all the time about goofy things like the sun isn't shining or that they don't want to wear Crocs because it's not Wacky Water Day at school. They stomp their feet and scream at you if you try to make them wear dresses when all they want to wear are shorts. They don't understand why the boys get to run around with their shirts off and they don't. Girls freak out if they are standing next to the pool and they get splashed and really don't want to get wet.
Girls tell you "no" with their arms crossed and are not afraid of the consequences, or at least think they are going to get away with it. They think that cuteness will get them out of anything. Girls get into mommy's makeup and paint the bathroom with it. Girls change their clothes an infinite amount of times each day.
Girls are nurturing. They sing and dance and love having an audience until you ask them to perform and they are suddenly shy. Girls love to snuggle and take care of people. Girls are much harder to discipline than boys, and they know it.
This is all my own experience and opinion. I know that all children are different and that some boys may do some of the things that girls do and some girls may do some of the things that boys do. I find it very challenging to raise two girls after all those boys. There are just as many similarities as there are differences between the two genders. I feel very lucky and blessed to have the opportunity to raise both. My mother swears up and down that raising boys is much harder than raising girls. She had three girls before having my brother. I think when you have so many of one before the other, you go into shock. You have to change your way of thinking; retrain yourself.
It's funny to think that for the longest time I never thought I would get the chance to raise a girl, let alone two. I think of things like that when we are in the car and my newly potty trained daughter says she has to go potty and I go into panic because I can't just pull over and have her pee on the side of the road like the boys.  

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Funny Things Kids Say

When you raise children, you often hear some entertaining words come out of their mouths. I think the time between the ages of two and eight is the prime time to hear some of the most hilarious things known to parents. Over the years, my husband and I have witnessed the comic genius that kids tend to be whether they mean to or not. When I stated out loud that I would be writing about funny things kids say, I was immediately surrounded by three of my children who felt obliged to bombard me with "funniness." I must admit that when they intentionally try to be funny, it doesn't work. They dressed up in costumes, did silly dances, made ridiculous faces, and tried to make unusual noises. That is their typical, daily behavior.
Kids often make up their own words, and mispronounce words. I love it when they repeat things that they hear incorrectly. The best is when they say something and have the most serious look known to kid-dom on faces. When my second son was not quite two, he called chocolate milk "cha cha milk." It has been known as cha cha milk ever since. In our house, pacifiers are called "pooty." The unusual name comes from my favorite movie, Orange County.  My husband and I both thought it was a funny name, so we dubbed it "the pooty." Our three year old calls her backpack "packpack," which she carries everywhere, even to church. You would think she would use her Dora backpack which is the actual "Backpack" from the cartoon. No, she uses her pink "packpack." Unfortunately, we all call them packpacks now. No one can stand to correct her because it is cute and funny. She also calls bathing suits "babysoup" and I believe if I remember correctly, that is what I called them as a little girl. Kids have their catchphrases and cute sayings. Our three year old has been saying some of the funniest things lately, that I just have to share them with everyone.
You have to remember that my girls are the youngest of seven, and the older five are all boys. Sadly, they tend to pick up some things that girls shouldn't say. For instance: "Oh my balls!" is something she would say and still says on occasion when they are all wrestling and she hears the boys saying it. I had to explain to her that girls don't have "balls" and that she shouldn't say that because it's not lady-like. She said this just the other night while she was sitting on the couch with my husband and I, "I farted in my mouth." What she did was burp. Why she decided to say she farted in her mouth I will never know. She knows the difference between the two, believe me. Our oldest daughter has an uncanny ability to tell you how it is too. She once saw me eating the last of the ice cream out of the carton and said, "Why are you eating that whole box of ice cream?" Honestly, there was only a couple of scoops left. She loves to tell her brothers that they are "nasty" or "gisgusting." She thinks that gum is an actual food group and sometimes says, "Can I have some gum cause I'm hungry." She can be very serious and demanding. When she was just two years old, she had been listening to me talk to her dad and said, "You serious mom?" She has told me more than once, "Don't be ridiculous." I know I can count on her to be honest with me, whether I want her to or not. She was trying to get my attention the other night and said, "You gotta watch me, alright?" She has tried to bribe me with "I'll be your best friend" and is well known for saying, "What the heck?" I can always count on her to say or do something noteworthy like suddenly breaking out in a chorus of "all the single ladies, all the single ladies." Too funny.
My five year old cannot tell a lie and is unforgivingly honest. He loves to tell me, "You have a big belly" but he also tells me, "Mommy, you are so beautiful." Such a sweet boy. He often tells his younger sister, "You are so annoying" and I can't possibly imagine where he heard that.
My eight year old is quite the comedian. He says things without meaning to be funny and it just comes out that way. There was one summer when we were visiting my sister weeks before she adopted her daughter. He asked my sister for a banana but said, "I want a benina." My sister thought he said I want to be Nina, which is her daughter's name. We all laughed because it was a great stress reliever. All my boys remember the one morning during football season when my little man was getting dressed for school and had put on a pair of undies that had been transformed into a "girdle" for football. He was watching tv and pulling the new fangled undies and realized they had holes in the sides. He exclaimed, "We can, she's got, hey, I got pockets in my underwear!" How exciting to have pockets in your underwear!
I could write an entire book if I could remember all the crazy things my kids have said. There are some that I will never forget and I will bring them up at appropriate times in their adult lives. Just like no one will EVER let me live this one down, "Stick your boobies in Jell-O!"- a statement I had said one time when my sister had friends over. My husband enjoyed reminiscing his own childhood and came up with "Jungle when I pee," which is what he thought the monkeys sang in The Jungle Book. It's actually "jungle VIP." Silly boy.
These goofy moments happen all the time and are a helpful reminder of what a blessing children truly are. They make waking up in the morning a delight (if I have been blessed with at least 8 hours of shut eye).