Roughhousing.

In the deep of summer and its unrelenting excessive heat, once again our air-conditioning is caput.  Our landlord is great about getting an A/C company out to remedy the problem as soon as possible, but time marches slowly over the days of sweltering heat.  I wonder if time stands still the heat is so unbearable.  During those days, our home often would reach temperatures that exceed the heat outside.  One day, the boys are at camp all morning and then we spend all afternoon at a friend's pool.  We are there until the evening hours and the boys are so drained from the heat, they both pass out in the first minute of being in an air-conditioned car.  I would come to refer to our house as "the inferno" during these few days.  Case in point, that night at 11 o'clock the house would still hover around 86 degrees.

We get through three days and nights of the discomfort and on the evening of the fourth day, our house is starting to finally cool off.  82 degrees never felt so good.

Nine o'clock and both boys are finally in bed and the house is a chilly 73 degrees.    I hang up the telephone with my brother for a mid-week catch up, nicety, 'how are you?' talk, when something catches my eye on Pinterest.

First, an admission.  I am a Pinterest junkie.  I pin and repin and well repin.  The “what if’s…  the “some day” home…  the idyllic childhood crafts that the perfect mommy is doing with her kids…  The superfood recipes and the junk food game-day recipes…  a treasure trove of the “I wish’s” and the “If I were a better mom” ideas.  Or the “Only if I had time” ideas.  Pinterest in itself is an addiction… it oozes visual delights and reflects on self-improvement.  It is all things that busy moms need and love.  A virtual bulletin board of the best and the brightest.  But let’s be honest here, my life boards are piles of magazine cut-outs, notes from the schools, junk mail that needs to be shredded and scribbled unchecked to-do lists.

On this occasion, it's not the multimillion dollar interior of a great room that captivates me or an adorable artsy craft that seems so simple and a great idea in concept...  instead it's a "The 20 Things No One Ever Told Us About Raising a Boy:  And Every One Is True".  I am curious and instantly am taken.  Okay, people if you know me, I am not an "email forward" type of person.  I am not a chainletter person.  I once in a great while read the political comics of a weekly news magazine, but I rarely believe sharing around those adorable puppies or that story supposedly from so-and-so's cousin.  I believe that an article a “Top List" of anything can not sum it up.  At least not for me.

I am intrigued and compelled to click through.  The first one on the list that I click through to is "The Penis Comparisons Start Early".  I start laughing thinking of my boys.  And all products of the Y gene for that matter.  After I read the comical, albeit true, blurb I continue to click through the list...   

• "Star Wars Takes Over Earlier Than You Expect" (You can say that again, check out my thoughts on Star Wars here)...
• "Matchbox cars and trucks will multiply on their own in your home" (yep, step on ‘em every day)...
• "You Will Revise Your Wedding Fantasies -- And Be Fine With It" (my greatest fear come true)... 
• "Rough housing is Innate...  it's normal and experts say it's healthy" (I break up brawls daily in my house)...
• "Boys Love Their Moms" (I smile.  That really says it.)

Faint tears well in my eyes.  I feel my self giggle as I lift my tired body up the stairs to bed.  As I crawl in, I begin telling my husband about the list and we laugh at the humor.  “It’s all so real…  So true,” I tell him.  “You must read this article.”

The next morning my bed feels icy.  I love it.  I stretch and roll over.  I can barely lift my dull head.  I don't know if body is in recovery mode after the marathon of heat, but I linger in bed for some more time.  The rushing of water in the shower tells me that my husband is getting ready to leave for work.  I hear the boys playing downstairs.  Laughter and hysterical shouting fills the house on the bright summer morning.  I want to stay in my ice box bed all day.  The cold sheets encircling me and my lazy head sinks down in my pillow.

I stretch and roll out and greet my husband.  He tells me that I should really go check on the boys.  I feel like telling him that he can.  But instead I slowly drag myself up and then fling my feet over the side of the bed and drop my weight onto my feet.  I walk halfway down the stairs and peer down to see the boys wrestling on the floor of the foyer.  I smirk and remember the article...  "Roughhousing is normal and even healthy."

I am snapped into a new dimension of boy insanity, as the most unbelievable event happens right before my eyes.  The boys don't even realize that I am watching.  Dylan stands up before I can even comprehend what's going on as he hurls a fluffy, white object at Michael's head.  I rub my eyes, still trying to wake up and be sure that I am seeing the scene accurately.  The object smacks Michael squarely in the face and explodes.  LITERALLY, EXPLODES into a million tiny pieces.  I can't really make out what it is, but the large object gives the appearance that it's a sack of flour dulling slamming into Michael’s face and raining tiny white particles everywhere.

Next, I see the remaining object that wasn't decimated sink from Michael's face to the ground with an exhausted thud.  I react immediately since Dylan threw it with such menace, and the residual mess is now undeniably decorating my foyer.  As I run down the stairs, Dylan laughs his mischievous snickers.  Michael is frozen in his place completely stunned.  His expression still in a state shock.  He doesn't know whether to laugh at his brother's antics or to start wailing out of anger.  I begin yelling as I approach and Dylan throws his hands over his ears.

Roughhousing, yeah right.

Matters only get worse when I identify the weapon of mass destruction.  A diaper.  A fully-loaded pee-soaked diaper that Dylan had been wearing overnight.  No mistake.  Size 6.  Heavy in mass and large enough to hit a target like his brother.  I don’t know if this kid is insane or brilliant.

The particles that are now all over Michael's hair, his shirt, the wood floor, our throw rugs and frankly the entire foyer are the gel beads of a diaper.  These weird spongy gel beads absorb the urine and its yuk smell.  You might never know they are present in the high-tech diapers of today, unless, frankly, your three year old lobs one at his brother.

My GAG reflex is emerging.

Only my boys.  And, to think, for once I was going to let the roughhousing go...  Normal and healthy...  I snort at the thought.

Dylan is now (clearly) pants-less, Michael is coming to, and my husband is late for work.  I am in a fit yelling in tongues.  Somehow, I am able to communicate to my husband that Michael needs to be bathed and Michael heads upstairs to get cleaned up.

Dylan is sent to the "thinking spot", which is our version of time out.  How politically correct of us.  I feel myself sneer as I send him to the “thinking spot”.  The term, thinking spot, doesn't exactly carry the "heavy-hitter" weight to underscore how truly upset I am.  Something like "the drama dungeon" or the "smarty pants asylum"...  anything else might have more zest or umph where they can wait out their issues.

I refocus.  This is not just a mess, it is downright UNSANITARY.  GAG again.  I wonder where my mom HAZMAT suit is at this moment as I envision a urine cloud over the area that I am trying to conceive of cleaning.  Might it take a mushroom cloud appearance?  Or more of a stealth odorless, tasteless WMD that we are dealing with?  I had no idea years ago that moms also earn a degree in chemical or biological weaponry.

I try to vacuum the gel beads with the hose of the vacuum.  Only half of the beads give way and are swept up.  The other half remains on the floor further provoking me after a pass with the vacuum attachment.  The gel material is sticky enough that it doesn’t immediately pull into the suction of the vacuum.   I concede and try the vacuum in the upright position.  None of the gel beads move.  I try wiping it with wet paper towels and the gel beads bounce around in all different directions taunting me.  They pull against the paper towel and do not cooperatively sweep up or disappear.  Finally, I try sweeping these suckers up with a broom and pan.  They bounce, stick, and pull with traction against the flow of the bristles of the broom.  I am livid.  HOW THE HELL AM I GOING TO CLEAN THIS?!

I excuse Dylan from the thinking spot and direct him to come and help me clean the mess.  Like a lengthy question on a final exam, I mentally answer out my answer the best of my options.  Dylan stands there and stares at me as I try to gather my thoughts on the multiple choice Mommy exam.

“If you were a mom, and your kid obliterated a diaper, how would you clean the mess?”

A)   A vacuum that only works moderately

B)   Wet papertowels which does a mediocre job of catching the loose material

C)   A Broom that spreads the mess around

D)   Leave the house running and screaming down the street

E)    D is not an option.

With few options, I grab the vacuum and tediously begin cleaning with the attachment.  I have to pass and repass the same spot a couple times to clean up the disgusting gel beads.  I make Dylan help me with the clean up.  My husband has bathed Michael and heads out the door.  As he walks toward the door, frankly with freedom in view (lucky guy!), Dylan is frantic and upset.  He begins begging Daddy to stay.  After quite a few hugs, high fives, fist pumps, blowing kisses, waves, Dylan runs out the door after my husband.  I see his bare bottom head out the back sliding glass door, his little feet moving frantically and his voice wailing.  I run out after him and my husband sees pants-less Dylan running toward the car.

Daddy scoops him up and brings him back into the house. We get Dylan in a pair of underwear so he is no longer baring it all.   Now on the third try, my husband successfully makes it out the door.  The boys and I sit on the front porch and wave at him as we do every morning as his car pulls out of the drive way.  The boys shout their send-offs to Daddy for the day.  “Daddy, tonight I will read you THREE stories!” Dylan yells.  Michael projects, “I love you, I will tell you stories tonight, Daddy.”

Undeniably, there is the truth staring every parent of boys in the face...  the things that occur when you raise boys.  The ones you wish you knew before you even considered having kids.  The ones you wish you were prepared for.  And the ones that there is no conceivable way you CAN prepare for.  To say the least, I would’ve never believed that one morning I’d watch my own toddler son squarely nail his brother in the face with a soppy diaper.  To raise boys takes will, guts and tenacity.  To raise my boys, well that’s a whole other level. 

And off we go.  Another day at the races and I haven’t even had my cup of coffee.