On Raising Boys

My friend Stacy recently put a post on her blog lamenting the difference between her girls that play quietly together and her baby boy that makes huge messes to pass the time. I thought about my busy two-year-old and wondered how much I should tell her to expect...

I wondered if I should tell her about having to put two child safety "locks" on the cupboard, just to slow Aiden down long enough to give me a chance to catch him before disaster strikes.

I wondered if I should tell her about how I have to tie the chairs to the table to keep Aiden from pushing the chairs over to the counter and climbing up to get into the sink, the cupboards, the knife block...

I wondered if I should tell her about how I have to safety pin the table cloth around the legs of the table so that Aiden won't yank it off, and how the tablecloth is to try to protect our table from all the dents Aiden was putting in the wood with his silverware.

I wondered if I should tell her about how I have to tie the refrigerator shut to keep Aiden out of it. Why? For example, just a few weeks ago I forgot to "lock" it behind me and Aiden got out the yogurt and a big bottle of lemon juice and proceeded to mix them on the table.

I don't think I should tell her about how I went down into the laundry room today and found that Aiden had turned over a laundry basket, used it to climb up onto the dryer, and was mixing OxyPure powder and ginger ale in one of those big refillable mugs.

But then, she needn't be afraid of raising boys. Just last week Nyah took a toothpaste tube and squeezed all of the toothpaste out into the back of a little toy dump truck. Wait, I don't think she'll find that comforting. Or maybe she will. Maybe she'll just be glad that her kids come from a different gene pool.