Raising Boys: The Flour Incident

The Dracenator, who is 7, told me the night before last that his nerves were shot. 

Why were his nerves shot?  Because Charlie told him to go to bed a whole 5 minutes early because he would not cooperate nicely with his brother in the cleaning of the guinea pig cage. 

Pleeeasse!

What does a 7 year old boy know about nerves being shot anyway?  Okay, I admit that he did hear it from me.  I think I say that on a  regular basis and while I am pretty certain I haven't said this in awhile, I used to say, You're gonna give me a nervous breakdown!

I realize I'm not going to be winning any parenting awards for spewing these types of comments but dang, I have been doing my job as mother of  "ALL BOY" boys now for 11 years and drug-free, no less! 

I can look back on some of the things they've done to provoke these types of comments now and find them amusing though at the time of the offense they were anything but.

Here is just one that comes to mind...

{The Flour Incident}

This little catastrophe took place back when I was still a single widow.  The Dracenator was a toddler and Dev was probably 5 or 6.

My laundry room/computer room were down in the basement.  I was down there for maybe 10 or 15 minutes and when I went down, they were watching t.v. nicely in the living room. 

When I came back up, not so much! 

The Dracenator had gotten his tiny little monkey paws on a bag of flour and could not resist the urge to dump it all over my living room rug.  He is dancing like a maniac in the flour and throwing handfuls of it up into the air while his brother is standing on the couch laughing like a hyena.  

It was in that exact moment that I finally understood why it is that some species eat their young.  It took every.single.ounce. of strength, self-control and patience in my body to not completely lose any sense of sanity I had left.

Do you know how hard it is to clean flour up off an area rug and a sofa? No lie, my vacuum cleaner spit out flour for 6 months after that. I couldn't vacuum without turning red in the face. 

I still wouldn't really say that I can laugh about this one now...give me a few more years...but I can look back on it with slight amusement and not feel the need to drink a pitcher of margaritas or say, I think I'm going to go have my nervous breakdown now.  

There is a mile long list of similar incidents stored away in my brain, enough to keep me writing all day, but I'll save those for another day.

Maybe next time I will tell y'all about the countless times I've had to reprimand those little Y chromosomes for peeing in inappropriate places and ways, like the time little toddler Dracenator peed in his Happy Meal bag and brought it to me.  I don't think I need to tell you that a paper bag does not properly contain fluid.  Grrr!  

I better stop now before I start talking about how my nerves are shot again.

Boys do not grow up gradually. They move forward in spurts like the hands of clocks in railway stations. ~ Cyril Connolly