I am reading a new book, just started it actually. I cannot say anything yet, as it is for a book review for April, but I will say that I knew from the moment I got the book pitch that I was going to need to read it and enjoy it when did….and I was right. As the title of this post indicates, it is a book about life with boys – the wilder side.
Those of you with sons know that life takes an adventurous turn when they come into your life, especially if you weren’t an adventurous person to begin with. Or if you grew up in a family of all girls, like I did.
I thought my three girls were active, but they were truly nothing to what their two brothers are like when they came along! We went from having a neat organized house and yard to having a beat up house and yard the older the boys got. It doesn’t help that we now have seven children living in our house, trampling the grass, digging, pounding and exploring either.
The thing is boys gravitate towards dirt, trees, building something out of nothing a lot more than the girls. Not that our girls didn’t do some of that, they did and still do. However, more often than not, the girls were/are usually outside with a blanket and their baby dolls having picnics and playing house – anything family related. The boys on the other hand love anything to do with wars, fighting, protecting and all that goes with those things.
The wilder side of boys is precisely the reason we desire to get out of a suburban, townhouse community and into the country where our children, our boys especially, can run, explore, create ugly, but ingenious on ugly creations, patchy lawns and definitely don’t want children climbing their trees! In the suburbs, neighbors shake may their heads, avoid you and your projects and if they don’t complain about you, they are certainly tempted to! In the country, neighbors offer to help you make your ugly projects!
Life with boys can be exasperating if you don’t have a sense of humor or you are worried about finances -the cost of re-drywalling, repainting, or wallpapering walls just to hide the gouges in them from who knows what kind of play went on behind your backs, the cost of re-seeding or re-sodding the lawn, to replacing blinds, screens and doors because of rough use. This is especially true if you are hoping to sell your house sometime in the future! The author of this new book seems to have a balance perspective of life with boys – One that I hope to learn from since I tend to find life with boys more exasperating and worrisome than humorous. It has been a goal of mine to make our children’s hearts matter more than material goods…let’s just say it is a journey and I have yet to arrive at my destination.
Stay tuned for the real book review…
