Stories from the Stringam Family Ranches of Southern Alberta

From the 50s and 60s to today . . .



Thursday, May 29, 2014

A Boy Day

And they look so innocent . . .
It had been a tough day.
And we had three boys.
Those are my excuses . . .
The day had started out slowly.
Mark had sleep-walked and nearly mistook the closet for the bathroom.
Caught just in time.
Because I am superwoman.
Shortly thereafter (oooh, good word), Mark and Erik had staged an argument/battle over the TV remote.
I should explain, here, that the word 'remote' was largely optimistic at this point.
There was a device.
Attached to our VCR by a long cord.
Thus, 'remote'.
Moving on . . .
Our two oldest boys were fighting over it.
Mom won.
By banishing them to opposite sides of the family room.
Neither of which was close enough to the TV to allow access to said remote.
They were watching 'Black Hole'.
Again.
It was the only approximately 'family' movie that our newly fledged VCR rental outlet had.
Both of them could quote it by this time.
They began to discuss whether they should do what Mark wanted - watch it again - or flip to the TV for the daily episode of Sesame Street. Erik's idea.
More arguing.
Won by Mom again, when she suggested, rather forcefully that the time had come for them to go outside and bother their father.
Whereupon (another good word) they found themselves in the great outdoors.
With their little brother.
For a while, they sat and pouted.
Then Duffy discovered the mud puddle.
A short time later, there was a timid tap at the front door.
I opened it.
There was a figure standing there.
Vaguely human in shape.
Roughly the size of my third son.
Several scrubbings later, I realized that it was, indeed, Duffy.
Whose brothers had doused him, quite literally, in his own discovery.
The culprits were discovered, some time later, hiding in the basement of the house their dad was building.
Still giggling.
I dragged them into the house.
To apologize.
And to eat lunch.
Was it really only noon?
They immediately began to argue over who got the yellow cup.
And where each of them would sit.
I settled it again.
No one got the yellow cup and neither of them got to sit remotely close to where they wanted. In fact, they were lucky to be sitting at all!
As they finally bowed their heads and started scooping up Mac and Cheese, I told them, “I think I'm going to take the three of you in to the 'used kids' store and trade you in on girls!”
My second son looked at me, round-eyed. “Can you do that?”
I laughed. “No,” I reassured him.
“Oh.” He went back to scooping.
But sometimes, I wish . . .

13 comments:

  1. I had trouble handling one...you ARE super mom.

    ReplyDelete
  2. If I had so many boys every day would be a tough one!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I used to tell my daughter I was going to take her to Walmart and buy her a new mom every time she complained about something I either did or didn't do.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I dunno. When you get that estrogen (times 3) escalating into the double digit years, boys don't look like so bad a proposition. The old saying: If you have a boy, you only have one boy to worry about; if you have a girl, you have every boy in town to worry about.

    ReplyDelete
  5. When my kids were little and people asked me how many I had, I would always say "2 boys, but that counts for at least 4 kids". They were an exhausting handful when they were little - but I must say they are pretty delightful as teenagers!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Me too! I'd say two boys, then add and two girls and watch people's jaws drop.

      Delete
  6. "Can you do that?"
    "No"
    HaHa, I'm mean, I would have said "yes" and guaranteed myself at least one afternoon of perfect behaviour.
    But then I'd confess, because perfect behaviour is boring and unnatural in kids.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Some days with young 'uns can be very, very long ... and I only had two. I can hardly imagine any more than that at once!

    ReplyDelete
  8. I barely managed two boys. But three? wow!

    ReplyDelete
  9. I can relate to this one since I had three boys first.
    Blessings for the chuckle today.

    ReplyDelete

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