Friday, March 11, 2011

This is My Life

"Remember when we made arm farts?! Wasn't that cool?!"

Real conversation at the Casa de Testosterone (with a small percentage of estrogen).

This is my life. A fascination with body noises and functions. Pokemon. Bey Blades. Baseball cleats and ummm athletic supporters. (I cannot say (or type) that word without thinking of a line near the beginning of Grease. "If you can't be an athlete...")

I'm sure there are plenty of girls who like Bey Blades and Pokemon and even have a fascination with making noises with their armpits. I just don't know any of them...yet. (Just like I'm sure there are many boys who don't have the aforementioned interests, the 16 yo was never particularly enamored of armpit noises but...)

Is it any wonder I embrace girliness for myself and now for my little girl.

Girls and women are strong and brilliant and very cool in their own ways.

(Pet peeve side note: I do not love being referred to as a girl now that I am 4 decades old. It rubs across my heart and brain like a nail file, and it doesn't smooth and shape, it roughens. It's sort of like using that nail file in place of a Q-tip, if you get my meaning. I remember getting info from UMASS and it said, "There are no girls at UMASS, only women." Even as a teen I thought, "YES!")

But I digress...

Alas, I live in an unbalanced world, and I'm not talking in the social justice way. The boys outbumber the girls here 6-2.

I try to teach my boys not to use crude language and to say excuse me after they, ahem, burp. I try to curb the desire to use their armpits as anything other than a place to put deodorant. I'm trying people!

I am trying to teach them how to behave in polite society. Common refrain said by the Husband or myself, "Do you see me walking around _________?!" I am trying to raise gentlemen and I also hope to raise one little lady; a lady with a backbone that isn't afraid to show how smart and strong she is.

I've got some time. If I'm lucky, in that time the armpit noises will lose their allure...

Pray for me people. I think I'm going to need it. :D

-Peace

2 comments:

  1. ........be an athletic supporter.........gosh how we love that movie!!

    Ummmm, I have a little girl and she's just as disgusting as any boy. However only around family, she'd never do such things in public. We are a little less than "proper" 'round here and bodily noises are a source of great entertainment! LOL!

    I am raising her to be a strong woman though. I'm a very strong woman, and yet have no problem submitting to my husband. I tell her she can be too.......as long as she chooses the right man. Don't marry and idiot, or a fool and expect to be able to submit to him! HA!

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  2. I used to remind my son, when he was demonstrating atrocious manners at the dinner table, that someday he'd be out on a date with a cute girl and she would be very unimpressed when he picked up the dinner plate he had just finished eating off of and licked it clean. (I then reminded him he could always go get seconds; licking wasn't necessary.)

    These days his little sister is in high school and he's off to college. I was looking forward to niceties at the table once again. And now I remind her that someday there will be a cute boy and she'll be out on a date, and he might not be very impressed by her significant talent for loud, from the diaphragm belches. Or perhaps he will...

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