All or Nothing

"I pressed the wrong button on the computer so I can never play Jump Start again!" came the voice of my five year old son. My sons, 8,7,5 are in the All or Nothing developmental stage. It is similar to early toddlerhood where if they touched a toy early in the morning and then left to go do something else the toy still belongs to them. Then, other siblings should be able to sniff the air and understand the rules, much like dogs sniffing the air for news.

I've noticed in my boys things I never noticed with my girls. My sons, when asked to complete a task, suffer from an uncontrollable compulsion to immediately take a detour. "Okay, time to go. Head to the van." I call at the park. This direction is translated to "You must immediately go climb the nearest tree." Or "Go make your beds, guys." they hear, "You must catch two cat's before eating chocolate on Wednesday."

The rhyme is right. "Slugs and snails and puppy dog tails" because that's what's in their pockets, on their clothes, in their thoughts all the time. But slugs are interesting. And puppy dog tails are simply adorable as long as they remain attached to the dog! Boys definatly bring adventure to the home. Tieing oneself to a tree with a bathrobe sash and propelling backwards off the branch...making wings out of cardborad boxes and standing on the stone BBQ in the backyard during a wind storm...peeing in the toybox outside making the world wonder "what IS that smell and where is it coming from?" for a month. Boys don't understand the purpose of clothing. They think their bowels are a built in science experiment. Boys don't ever think they'll get hurt, no they'll keep going backwards over the arm of the couch until they can figure out a way to do it without hurting themselves. Boys will tell you "you're beautiful mommy" when you're healthy and avoid you like the plague when you're sick. But boys give great hugs. They mean what they say with all their hearts. They solve problems, perhaps a little more physically than we'd like, but when the battle is over they leave friends. They work hard, even thought they usually destroy what they're working on. They may be the cause of my heart palpatations and grey hair. They are loud, oblivious, head strong warriors.... and I wouldn't trade them for the world.