Tag: motherhood

Nobody Puts Joe In A Corner

Who stands in a corner voluntarily? Joe does.

I swear, I’d really like to believe my boys are exceptionally bright but sometimes they make me think I should set my expectations a wee bit lower. This evening I was sitting on the sofa helping Joe practice his words for his spelling test tomorrow. Spelling has never been an easy subject for Joe, but even as the words have increased in difficulty during his fifth grade year, he has been doing a bit better with spelling this year than he did last year. (Yes. I was, in fact, simultaneously knocking on wood and typing just then.) I’ve begun to see a light at the end of the tunnel, as if his hard work is paying off and things are finally starting to take root in his brain. He didn’t struggle at all with hemisphere and he breezed right through isthmus. He was even able to give me the correct spelling and a word-for-word definition for archipelago. Then, just when I was starting to get a bit cocky thinking that all the time and effort I’ve put into being a stay-at-home caregiver was at long last yielding measurable results, he said something that really confused me.

“Okay, Joe. Spell tributary.”

“Mom…wait. Wait. I have to tell you something first,” he pleaded.

All too familiar with his stall tactics, I pressed on.

“Spell tributary and then you can tell me,” I replied.

“T-r-i-b-u-t-a-r-y,” he spit out. Then, as quick as lightning without a pause for breath in between his words he spewed forth, “Mom-today-I-stuck-my-nose-in-the-corner-of-the-dining-room-by-the-magnetic-board.”

He said it so quickly that I didn’t have a chance to catch half the words. Still, he was looking at me expectantly as if he’d just divulged the magic fix-it solution for the holes in the ozone layer.

“What?” was all I could muster. Well…that and a quizzical scrunching of my eyebrows.

“I-stuck-my-nose-in-the-corner-of-the-dining-room-by-the-magnetic-board,” he said again, slightly more slowly but still in a barely intelligible way.

“Okay,” I said with brows still furrowed, “that time I got corner and magnetic board. What corner?”

“UGH!” he was getting frustrated with my slow-uptake skills. “The corner in the dining room by the magnetic board.”

“Yeah? What about it?” I asked.

“Today, I stuck my nose in the corner of the dining room over by the magnetic board,” he repeated, trying very hard to be kind to his old and clearly mentally impaired mother.

“What? When did you do this?”

“When I was working on my math homework,” he replied.

Okay. This was starting to make some sense. It’s not unusual for any child to seek a break from his math homework. It’s even less surprising when your ADHD child becomes distracted from the process of long division.

“The next question, I guess, is WHY?” I asked, drawing out the end of that interrogative word hoping it would help him to understand how truly bizarre what he had just disclosed was.

“Because I’ve never done that before. I’ve never seen the house from that angle,” he replied with a tone that told me he was making perfect sense and I was an idiot not to understand it without explanation.

“Wow, Joe,” I said, trying my best not to look concerned about his mental faculties. “That’s an interesting reason to subject yourself to voluntary time in the corner.”

“I was curious,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. Then, as quickly as the conversation started it was over. “What’s the next word?” he asked.

Later, I was retelling the story to hubby who had been out with his parents this evening. After laughing about it for a bit, we started thinking about how differently Joe views the world. We’ve never been able to enter into how his ADHD mind works. We continue to try, but without firsthand knowledge and experience, we’re befuddled. We began to wonder if perhaps Joe knows something we don’t about the world. Maybe there’s something we’re missing? Simultaneously, we went and stood in separate corners in the dining room to see for a moment the world through Joe’s filter.

“I’ve never done this before,” Steve said.

“Me either. Ten years in this house and I’ve never once had my nose in a corner,” I replied.

“Does your nose touch the actual corner of the wall?” Steve inquired from the other corner of the dining room.

“Well, the magnetic board is blocking me at my height, but if I scrunch down a bit let’s see. Yep. Yes it does. It fits right into the corner,” I told him.

“Huh,” he said.

“Why? Does yours?”

“Yeah,” he replied.

“Who knew?”

Now, you could think we’re a little nutty for sticking our noses into the corner the way our son did, but after 11 years of grasping at straws trying to find a passage into Joe’s ADHD brain we will try anything. We desperately want to understand him better. Any hints at all would be welcome. The funny thing is that I started out thinking my son was crazy for choosing to stick his nose into the corner of the dining room, but the more I thought about it the better I felt about it. While most people take things for granted, Joe investigates. He theorizes. He experiments. He doesn’t accept things at face value. He is deeply curious, and there are far worse things you can be in this world. So, I take it back. I am totally okay if my son, by conventional standards, doesn’t appear to be exceptionally bright. If some people choose to think he’s exceptionally weird, that’s okay by me too. The bottom line is that he’s exceptional, and that’s pretty freaking fantastic.

 

 

Posted on by Me 6

Need A Vacation From My Subconscious

My greatest joys, my biggest concerns

I had a nightmare last night. Not a bad dream, a nightmare. A bad dream is something you will remember when you awaken and say “wow…that was unpleasant.” A nightmare is something that wakes you up, sticks with you, and makes you uncomfortable enough that you’re not even sure you want to go back to sleep. The last nightmare I had was about my boys and I standing on a dock over icy water, think Anchorage in late March. Both boys stepped a little closer to the edge of the dock and simultaneously they both slipped into the water. I tried to grab them, got a hold of one, and the other went under and did not come back up. I didn’t have a chance to find out if I jumped in to get the other one because I awoke at the moment that I realized I was losing one. Still, this nightmare causes me to tear up years later.

My mom taught me once that our dreams are our mind’s way of working out things that are troubling us in our subconscious. The things that we bury deeply don’t stay buried. Sooner or later our mind wants to work them out. She taught me to look to the feeling you’re having when you are in the dream for a clue as to what is bothering you. Then, look to your life and see where that feeling might match up. In my nightmare where the boys fall off the dock, I was feeling helpless and guilty, guilty that I saved one and not the other. In my life at the time, I’d been working extra hard to help Joe after his ADHD diagnosis. I was putting in hours a night to help him with his school work, meanwhile letting Luke more or less fend for himself. I was doing what I needed to be doing at the time, but I knew deep down that I wasn’t giving as much to Luke as I was to Joe. During my waking hours, that thought would cross my mind but I would shrug it off, saying that I had to be there for Joe while he struggled. During my sleeping hours, my mind reminded me that I felt as if I was shortchanging Luke. I felt bad for neglecting him.

Well, last night my subconscious brought me a real doozy. I was on a plane with the boys, heading somewhere exotic and distant. The plane suddenly started to fall from the sky. The cabin was losing pressure. Oxygen masks dropped, but not mine. I put Luke’s on him. Then I realized Joe’s was mask was a cord with nothing attached. I moved him to another seat that had a working mask and secured it. I was now separated from Luke and crouching down next to Joe as I realized I was running out of air. I grabbed Joe’s hand, told him I loved him, and he began sobbing. That’s when I woke up, heart pounding, breathing more heavily than I should be. I lay there for a minute, taking deep breaths and simply trying to return to a normal pulse rate. I shook my head as if somehow the act would work like an Etch-A-Sketch and clear the image from my brain. It did not work. It was shades of my last nightmare coming back to me. I help Luke who doesn’t need much help and focus on Joe who needs me more, all the while feeling like a horrible mother for neglecting my second child. Not good.

I suppose the fact that we just learned that Luke has some serious reading concerns isn’t helping my subconscious relax any. As Luke was starting with his pre-reading skills, Joe was struggling mightily in first grade. For the next two years, I worked hard with Joe to try to catch him up to grade level. Luke seemed to be doing well enough, so I let him simmer on the back burner. I reasoned that a lot of kids struggle with reading until around 3rd grade. For many children, at that time things start to click. At the end of last year, however, I realized how far behind Luke was with his reading skills but by then the issue was already firmly in place. Now, Luke gets to endure 2 hours a week of customized reading tutoring with a dyslexia specialist in our home to try to correct the issues we didn’t catch when he was first learning to read. And, yes, I feel like a big schmuck for not being more proactive and paying enough attention to Luke. Big letter L on my loser forehead.

You know, I appreciate the work my subconscious is trying to do for me, always running in background and working furiously to fix things for me. But, sometimes, I really wish it would just leave me alone. I’m subjugating those emotions because I don’t have the time, energy, or inclination to deal with them at this point. Why can’t my subconscious take a vacation like my conscience does on occasion? Being The Mom (like The Donald only without all the braggadocio and bloviating) is tough. Is it too much to ask for a little respite on occasion? Wait a minute. Instead of having my subconscious leave me, perhaps it would be better if I left it? Perhaps if I could leave it behind with my conscience, I could relax, let loose, and recharge somewhere tropical, like Hawaii. Then I could come back with the energy to help both boys simultaneously, and my subconscious could return to its job, running quietly in background mode and leaving me the hell alone.

Posted on by Me 3

The Curse Of Being A Quantitative Person With A Qualitative Life

I find myself in a bit of a quandary. I have a quantitative mind. Like most Americans, I like to see measurable results. Numbers are tidy. They tell a clear story. In this country, we like our charts, percentages, and statistics. You don’t need to look any further than our school system to recognize that truth. Our kids’ successful futures seem to hinge entirely upon grade point averages and optimal scores on the SAT and ACT exams. I did poorly at standardized tests. In fact, based on my marginal scores on the ACT exam, the University of Colorado at Boulder predicted I would be a solid C student. I graduated CU, however, with a solid B+ average. You see, what CU didn’t count on is that despite my desire to be a person who is successful by quantitative measure, I am not. It’s only through subjective assessment that I excel. Standardized tests might tell you that I’m average. My professors might suggest something different.

I’ve been thinking this weekend about how much of a struggle I cause for myself by being a person who would like to measure my success with numbers when there are no figures that can assess my current career. Oh, sure. You could log the number of miles I put in driving my boys to and from private school. You could maybe record the number of hours I spend working with them on their homework per week. I suppose you could even run a statistical analysis on the way I manage our grocery bills. But, none of that is impressive. Grocery bills and carpool hours are not consequential. I’m not increasing sales or cutting corporate losses by millions of dollars. I’m not earning large bonuses or shattering glass ceilings. There’s no way to quantify my effectiveness in my current job, despite the desire my numbers-oriented mind has to do just that.

Because of this discrepancy between the amount of effort I put out and the lack of measurable results I see and accolades I receive, I often feel unsuccessful. As I have reflected on this over this weekend, though, I’ve realized that my need to feel successful has occasionally overshadowed the importance of what I do. What should matter the most is what I know in my heart, which is that I have followed through on what I set out to do. Eleven years ago I made a choice. I chose to stay home with my boys rather than to continue working. I did this because I know I’m an all or nothing gal. I knew if I was working, I’d be wishing I was home with my children; and if I was at home with my children, I’d be thinking about all I had to do at work. I didn’t want my attention to be scattered, so I made a decision. I chose to pull myself out of the numbers game. All this time, though, I’ve continued holding myself accountable to a measurable standard that cannot exist in the role of stay-at-home parent.

Certainly there are more things in this life that are measured in terms of subjective quality rather than objective quantity. Every day there is one sunrise and one sunset, but there is no way to determine which is more breathtaking. There are billions of people on the planet, but each one has unique gifts to offer and there’s no way to measure which of those matter the most. Why do I care if I’m not winning any awards? Would an award make my children love me more? Would it prove I’m a better mother? Does not winning an award prove I’m not worth my carbon matter? I think it’s time to pull myself out of the quantitative world I grew up in. I need to let my competitive mindset go and release my mind from the bonds of measurable assessment. I know I’ve never been great at standardized evaluations. I’m doing the best of which I am capable. By those terms, I am incomparable. That should be enough.

Posted on by Me 4

A Virtual Cow Sunk My Battleship

A cow cannot beat a cocker spaniel in Battleship. Just saying.

Tonight our boys did not want to sleep. They had an excuse every other minute about why they were unable to get any rest. It was like they were two again, hopping out of bed just because they finally understood the old stall tactic. They needed water. They needed to be tucked in. They were missing their favorite stuffed animals. They’d forgotten to brush their teeth. They were wearing me out. Their final excuse for why they could not fall asleep was that they needed to check on their stuffed animals in Webkinz World. Seriously? I don’t think they have been on Webkinz World once in the past month, but suddenly it was situation critical. What if their animals needed them? Desperate to get them to sleep, I assured them I would check on their stuffed animals to make sure they weren’t lonely, starving, or sick.

So, that’s exactly what I found myself doing at 9:30, forty-five minutes after the boys had gotten into bed. I was in my office on my laptop offering a virtual plush koala named Casey some chocolate milk and tucking virtual Googles (a plush platypus) named Grandpa into its bed, which happens to be shaped like a pancake with bacon shaped pillows. Only my Baconator son, Luke, would purchase that bed for a pet. At one point, I was trying to improve the health and attitude of Luke’s cocker spaniel, Rover, by playing a spirited game of online Battleship against someone else’s virtual pet cow. As I was getting my ass kicked by an imaginary cow, it occurred to me that despite how hard I am on myself I really am a fairly good mom.

I mean, how many moms would sit and play online Battleship in Webkinz World just so their son could go to sleep knowing his virtual animals were loved? I’m no June Cleaver, but I’m not exactly Mommy Dearest either. I do my best. Sometimes it feels like my best isn’t nearly enough, but it is. At the end of the day, I know my boys feel loved, cared for, and safe. If it’s playing online Battleship in a virtual world filled with stuffed animals that proves to them that I love them, I can live with it. And, just wait until I tell Luke that Rover lost one game of Battleship but killed his opponent in the other 2 out of 3 matches. Okay. Okay. Playing online Battleship for my kids’ virtual animals is not exactly parental torture for me. I’m not about to let them know that, though. As far as they’re concerned, my time in Webkinz World is a personal sacrifice because parenting is a tough, selfless gig. I’m willing to take on the unpleasant assignments because that’s just the kind of mom I am. In fact, I’m going to finish writing now and go back and teach that stinky cow not to mess with Rover again because that’s how I roll.

Posted on by Me

Hitting My Head Against The Same Wall

My son who is too much like me in the ways I wish he was not

I wish I had the energy for a decent post here tonight, but the truth is that I gave at the office today. My full-time job is as stay-at-home parent, aka chauffeur/homework guru. Today my oldest son, who has moderate ADHD, had a rough afternoon. A very rough afternoon. You see, he didn’t do so well on a few math papers last week, papers that he completed in class so he didn’t have to bring them home to be checked by us. This would have been a nice avoidance tactic except that in his rush to finish he missed a lot of answers. His teacher, being the sweet woman she is and wanting to make sure he understands the material enough to be successful, kindly gave him the opportunity to correct the areas in which he had fallen short. In addition to the corrections he needed to make (about 20), he had 28 new math problems to complete and about 50 spelling words from two spelling lists to practice. Oh..he also had at least 15 minutes of reading to do. He missed recess because his teacher made him stay in and work on the math he was struggling with. As I was approaching him after school, I could tell we were headed straight for Chernobyl-level meltdown.

By the time we walked the thirty feet to the car, he was crying. He desperately needed some free time or a nap or a snack. But, he was so overwhelmed by the list of work he knew he needed to complete that he was certain he would have no time for television or video games or playing with friends tonight. Joe has a miserable fate as a Type A personality in a brain that is not readily capable of Type A behavior. As Joe carried on in the car about how sad he was that he wouldn’t get any “free time” because of his workload, I told him that I would not let him work for six hours without dinner. I told him that we’d happily accept the bad grades on his homework rather than making him redo everything if it was too much to ask of him today. I told him that this is only 5th grade math homework, and it’s definitely not worth crying over. I reminded him that in the grand scheme of things none of it mattered. I told him that we loved him and that he was plenty capable of completing the work with time to spare. He wouldn’t listen. His mind was made up. He was determined to believe that his short life was over and that he would never get the work done. Ever. The dramatic performance on the way home in the backseat would have put the actors on Days of Our Lives to shame.

If there’s one thing I understand about ADHD, it’s that it’s not a rational disorder. It makes no sense to someone who doesn’t have it. Many people don’t even believe it exists. I can understand that. You can’t quantitatively measure it, therefore it’s dubious.  (Side note: you can’t quantitatively measure migraine headaches either, yet doctors prescribe medication for them just the same and that is considered a perfectly acceptable diagnosis and treatment.) I can’t get into Joe’s brain and help him calm down when he gets this way. I’ve had my son for 11 years and, even though I understand what ADHD means for him, there are times when I completely mess it all up. It’s not that he wouldn’t listen to me. It’s that when he gets into that state, he can’t listen to me. After all this time, you would think I could stop the tantrum or curb it just by knowing how to handle it. But, I can’t because I don’t know from drama to drama what will work to calm him. It’s in his head. He has to be willing to let it go before things will change. Instead of letting him vent, I kept cutting him off and trying to comfort him. When he still wouldn’t listen, I became agitated and tried harder rather than backing off. I should have known better. I’ve had this wonderful child for 11 years. I should know better by now. Bad, bad mommy.

So, this is why it’s now 10 p.m. and all I want to do is watch some mindless television and go to sleep rather than write anything about what ended up being a mentally exhausting day. I didn’t do the best job at my job today, and I’m worn out. The good news is that I still have a smart, sweet boy who loves me, and I have another chance tomorrow to prove to him that struggles in school do not make him less of a wonderful person. They’re just what they are…struggles. Nothing more. Nothing less. We all have them, and no one is immune. Maybe I would have a better time convincing Joe of this truth if I believed it applied to me as well?

Posted on by Me 3

You Can’t Have It All…Enjoli Lied

Hard to believe, but this is not how I spend my days as a stay-at-home mom with nothing but free time. 😉

The other day a friend and fellow “stay-at-home mom” had a moment of frustration and ranted a bit on her Facebook status. Her post listed all the things she does on a daily basis and then noted that someone close to her remarked that she doesn’t really do anything. I read her post and felt complete empathy. Many of my blogs have been tyrades about how frustrating and thankless the job of Mom can be.

Then, today, I came across a Facebook post from a working mom friend of mine. She’s currently in-between jobs for a short period of time, so she was at the park listening to the birds, sipping a latte while her house was being cleaned, and thinking that she would like to be a “house frau,” presumably so she could enjoy more moments like that one. Now, I know my friend meant no disrespect to stay-at-home moms. As long as I’ve known her (over sixteen years), she has worked outside the home full-time while raising two children. I know how long and difficult her days are, and I know how devoted she is and always has been to her children. I can understand how she would be enjoying a brief reprieve between career positions today and thinking that it would be nice not to have to work at all.

Still, I had to reply to her post to remind her that, as a certified “house frau,” I can attest that I can’t afford someone to clean my house because that’s what I agreed to do when I gave up my income to stay home with my boys. I told her that I have to clean my own house, which (let’s face it) sucks and cuts into my time to sit, worry-free, in the park in the morning sipping my latte. There have been many times when I’ve looked at Barb’s career, her housecleaning service, her professional wardrobe, and her European vacations, and felt something akin to a twinge (or perhaps a seizure-full) of jealousy. I know, though, that her life, while seemingly more glamorous than mine, is a lot of frigging work too.

I’m in something of a transitional period in my life right now. While still technically an unemployed, stay-at-home mom, I’ve made the decision to work on my writing. Between this blog and my book, I’ve been spending between 4-6 hours a day writing, researching, and trying to grow my platform. While this has been a boon for my sense of self and my creative mind, I’ve found myself becoming overwhelmed, cranky, and increasingly depressed. Why? Because I’ve discovered that I can’t do it all. I can’t keep a clean house, cook for my family, run the errands, be homework coach and chauffeur, wash and iron clothes, and develop my writing into something that might perhaps segue into a paying career.

Remember that commercial for Enjoli perfume? That stupid commercial vexes me. Ever since I was 12, I was sold the idea that a woman should be able to do it all without struggle. I should absolutely be able to have a career, cook for my family, keep a clean house, care for my children, and have the energy to seduce my husband nightly, right? I’d like to bitch slap the men who came up with that ad. Oh, come on. It had to be men who envisioned the Enjoli woman. That ad is a fantasy. There isn’t a woman in her right mind who would tell you that at the end of a long day, during which she had spent at least eight hours in an office, then cooked dinner, cared for her children and put them to bed, what she really thought about was making her husband feel like a man. More than likely, what she actually thought about was a glass of wine, a locked door, a long and solitary soak in a tub, followed by a collapse into a bed where her husband would let her get some sleep.

The other night I had a Come-To-Jesus meeting with my husband and our sons. I told them that as much as I would love to be able to continue writing, I cannot do it if I do not get some assistance from them. Because our financial situation has not changed, I can’t afford a housecleaning service. I need them to pitch in if I want to be able to devote myself to writing. This was not an easy conversation for me because, the entire time I was asking for help, I was feeling I had failed my inner-Enjoli woman. What I was really doing, however, was not admitting defeat but instead recognizing that I had been trying to do the impossible and be the unattainable.

No one can do it all or have it all. We all sacrifice. The grass isn’t greener anywhere else. It’s not easier one way or the other. We make choices and then we live with them. On a good day, I get to yoga, manage to knock a couple things off my to-do list, and find time for a shower. On a good day, my working friends knock something off their to-do-lists, maybe get a kudo from their boss, and perhaps get to enjoy an uninterrupted lunch for an hour. But, most of the time, we all just settle for the best we can get, which is most certainly nowhere near having it all.

Posted on by Me 1

Get The Rubber Room Ready For Me!

You’re never too old for the carousel.

I’ve lost my mind. It’s official. Prepare the rubber room. Put some extra fabric softener in when you wash my straightjacket. I’m ready to be institutionalized. It finally happened. Traditionally, the day before school starts has been the one day of the year I was guaranteed to be in a good mood. But, today, I was mopey. We went to the zoo to check our last to-do off our summer to-do list. I was depressed the entire time. Even the elephants couldn’t cheer me up, and they are my favorite zoo animal. That’s when I knew things were bad. Then it hit me. I’m actually sad that the summer is over and that the little buggers (who, incidentally, have been driving me crazy for the past two weeks with their non-stop bickering) are leaving me. Sniff.

No more sleeping in. No more schedule-less days. No more field trips. No more late nights. No more days at the pool. I’m back to volunteering, making lunches, chauffeuring, and early mornings. And, while all that is fine and good and part of my career as Mom, right now I’m sad because I am going to miss my little monkeys. The house is going to seem quiet. I’m not going to have anyone nearby with whom to share my flippant remarks, which means I’m going to be talking to myself a lot again. I never thought I’d see the day when the thought of a tranquil, silent house would vex my introverted soul. A mere couple weeks ago I was dancing in the back-to-school aisle at Target. Yet, today I’m mourning the end of summer and the loss of precious time with my awesome sons. I’m not sure what’s happening to me. Curiouser and curiouser.

I suppose that if there’s a silver lining here, it’s that the years as they’ve been growing older have been flying by at an ever increasing speed. That means that next summer should be here before I know it. Funny how time and the speed at which she travels is both a blessing and a curse.

Posted on by Me 2

The Most Patient People Are The Ones With Lots Of Practice

Barely hanging in there

I’m on the light rail train waiting for the doors to close so we can travel back to the Mineral Station where we parked before heading downtown to the Rockies baseball game. As I sit here, my ears are being assaulted by the whines and whimpers of two obnoxious kids who apparently don’t understand what it means to wait. They can’t sit still. They keep pestering their parents with inane questions about when the train will leave and how long it will be until they get home. They’re driving me crazy. I’m thinking about going over and asking their parents to quiet them down. I should totally do that. But, wait. I can’t. They’re mine. Dammit. I hate it when that happens.

Patience has never been my strong suit. My mother berated me repeatedly for my inability to wait for something. I remember once I was so annoyed with her for hounding me about my lack of patience that I told her I was going to pray for it. I thought that would placate her and keep her from bothering me about it for a bit. Instead, she told me that when you pray for patience God merely gives you more opportunity to practice it. That’s right about the time I became much more selective with my prayer requests.

But, my mom was right. The only way to learn patience is to practice it. So, as much as the boys are driving me crazy with their antics and questions, this situation is exactly what they need. And, in putting up with their impatience, I am given the opportunity to practice my own. For every minute I go without smacking them, I am becoming a better, more peaceful person. At least, that is what I am telling myself. I 100% believe that I ended up with these two impatient little monkeys because I once was silly enough to pray for patience. Remember, sometimes when God wants to punish you he answers your prayers. The plus side is that at this current rate of practice, I might end up somewhere on the zen scale between Yoda and Gandhi. That would almost make moments like this one worthwhile.

Posted on by Me 1

The Great Weenie War

Luke often sleep like this…just like Al Bundy.

I grew up in a house filled with girls. With me, my two sisters, and my mother to contend with, my father had no chance. He was perpetually surrounded by hair products, dolls, and florals. Oh…he tried to change things up. He bought us softball gloves and played catch with us. We were ordered to “go long” so we could catch “the bomb,” as he launched Denver-Bronco-colored orange and blue Nerf footballs at us. We never really had much interest in sports, but played along because we knew a good spiral-throwing arm might come in handy someday to impress a boy. My dad was the odd man out. His only consolation (if you could call it that) was a brown miniature poodle, which we girls had given the masculine moniker “Coco.” At least with the dog there was another male around, albeit a neutered one.

Now that I am married and the mother of two sons, I am the odd one out. In my house, I am constantly competing against testosterone and penises. This afternoon, my sons were chasing each other around the house with wooden, western-style toy rifles, shooting at each other.

“I just shot Joe’s nose off!” Luke exclaimed from his position against the wall downstairs.

“I can’t believe he got me! I had the higher ground,” Joe complained.

Hubby suggested we get more bullets for their Nerf guns so they could shoot each other “for real.” Eeesh. I was headed to Target anyway, so I picked some up for them. The minute I got home, the guns were loaded up and the battle began. As I walked around putting laundry away, I had to dodge boys and foam bullets. Luckily, I’m fairly stealthy and avoided being caught in the crossfire. Life in this house can be dangerous.

I tried to capture a photo of the boys during their battle so I could share it with a blog I was tentatively entitling Nerf Wars, but in every single shot I took one of the boys had one hand on his gun and the other hand on his penis. Are you kidding me? I had to delete every photo I took. I was trying to get a shot of the actual gunfight. Instead, my iPhone only held shots of hands on crotches. A man’s fixation with his penis starts at birth and never abates.

“What is this? The Great Weenie War?” I yelled over their sound effects.

They stopped and looked at me. Then they both cracked up. I had inadvertently coined the newest, most fun phrase in our house. For the next half hour, they ran around shooting at each other while yelling “Weenie War!” I just rolled my eyes, went to my bedroom for solace, and quietly closed the door. What else could I do? If this house is under siege during the Great Weenie War, I’m clearly outgunned. I looked at the only other female in this house, our border collie Ruby, hunkered down on her dog bed trying to ignore the fighting. For the first time, I truly understood how my father felt while I was growing up and I appreciated his bond with our male family pet. Ruby and I sat there staring at each other as the sounds of imaginary gunfire erupted again in the hallway. I swear she rolled her eyes too. When you’re outnumbered in battle, all you can do is take cover and hope you don’t have to hoist the white flag.

Someday the hormone balance in our home will return. The boys will leave home (hopefully to go to college) and things will level out again. Honestly, though, I don’t mind being being the only female in this house. Sure, I have to put up with farting contests and super heroes and a constant barrage of imaginary gunfire. But, when it’s all said and done, every penis-packing person here knows I carry the biggest gun. And, that’s all that matters.

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