Day 22: Do you Copy?

Maybe it is being in a house of men that I've come accustomed to expecting they are usually only half listening to me.  Today has been a doozy though.  

But, as I often say in life, it is more fun to laugh than cry.  My favorite is laughter until you cry...and at my age, almost pee my pants!

I've learned to filter my conversations with hubby based on his exhaustion level.  Now that he works third shift, I have a small window for serious talks, or at least ones I want him to remember.  If I don't hit him as soon as he arrives home, or right before he goes to work, our talks are often incoherent jibberish.

On Fridays, he is normally off after 7 am; so he uses the day for his side jobs, errands and honey-do lists he needs to accomplish.  Today he didn't get in bed until almost 3 pm, which might not be a big deal, except for the fact that he's pulling an extra shift tonight.  

Around lunch time, I called to ask him to do a few things while he was out and my passengers in the car were rolling in tears by the time I hung up.  If I repeated myself once, I said it six times.  At one point I felt like an AT&T commercial.

"Can you hear me now?"

The issue wasn't my connection or signal strength; however, it was either his attention span or aging ears.  Or a mixture of both!

People comment all the time how much my son favors me but today he was taking very much after his dad.  At least in the sense of paying attention and understanding the conversation.

In our short lunch excursion, he managed to miss a turn, pass up his cousin's house, wrangle a loose cow in the road, and learn that there is a big difference between a hemorrhage and a hemorrhoid.

He takes after momma for being dramatic and tends to over exaggerate things.  I don't remember what our topic even was but we were both laughing because he was being silly in his description.  We were running late to get him to work and he was distracted trying to scratch his back.  

Noah often forgets how tall he is and hits his hat or hand or some other item on our ceiling fan often.  Today it was a metal back scratcher.  I'm not sure how the fan survived but that scratcher shot across the room and nearly took my eye out.  Once I recovered from the shock we were both doubled over in quiet laughter, so as not to wake his dad.

It wasn't until several minutes later he realized it had also taken a huge chunk out of his finger.  To the oil box we went where I doctored and bandaged him, rushing us both out the door.  He commented that it was throbbing and was worried it would gush through.

"You're not hemorrhaging, Noah," I said with a chuckle.

With a look of horror he gasped, "What's my butt got to do with it!?"  

I'm sure his employees thought I am one mean momma, laughing hysterically as I dropped him off.

Life with boys.  Oh, the joys!

The Talk

I'm surrounded by all things male.  I'm raising a son (and a hubby), my dog and cat are both males, and so this chick often feels outnumbered.  Now, in some ways being the only girl has its advantages.  I get unlimited mirror time, don't have to share my shoes or jewelry, and rarely have to take out the trash.

Yet there are bad points to living in a heavy male household.  With the exception of my neat-freak dog, boys are messy.  Their bathroom habits are sloppy at best; they laugh at stinky smells and sounds and even brag about them (as if it's a point of pride); and I'm convinced they are incapable of placing socks in a hamper.

The most interesting male subject in the house is my pre-teen because he's at that ever changing, steadily growing stage, on a fast track towards puberty.  As I've only had a mere 11 years, I haven't quite had enough opportunity to mold and train him into the hygenic, manner-filled lad I wish him to become.  Our mornings include repeated reminders of brushing teeth, using deoderant, zipping zippers and pulling up pants to hide the horrid plumber crack.  He's learning....but it's a work in progress.  I'd say we're much improved from a few years ago when I actually caught him peeing from the HALL, just to see if the stream would reach all the way into the toilet from that angle.  Boys!

Last night was quite amusing, as I knew he'd spent part of his day at school watching the dreaded puberty video in class.  Now, as a mom of a tween boy, I know I have to tred lightly on topics such as these and pad everything with humor so I was very vague in bringing it up.  I asked in pasing how the video was and he quickly summed it up with one word, "AWKWARD!"  When I tried to continue the conversation, any question I attempted was stopped short with another, "Awkward!"  Since I could see him trying to shrink behind his hair or melt into the couch, I decided to leave it for dad but left him with the knowledge that he could surely come to me with questions, if he had any later.  Yeah, I know, I don't see that happening.  Hmmm, maybe this is yet another perk to being the only girl in the house!