Braving Boys

Boy stuff keeps me so busy that I often don’t find the time to write about it. But I want to, and I need to, because one day, these beautiful monsters of mine will be all grown up, and there’s no way I’m going to remember all the cute little stories if I don’t jot them down. Here are a few:

Danny

Danny, 6 years old, finally lost a tooth on December 30. We were at Busch Gardens, eating lunch, when John tugged it out. It was hanging by a thread, we told Danny, and that’s why it needed to come out. He’d been very patient for weeks, letting that tooth linger in its assigned space. Big bro Joe would have yanked that thing from his own mouth the minute he noticed it jiggling even a tad bit. Not Danny, who is now monitoring another loose one. Yesterday, he came out of school and asked me, “Mom, is this hanging by a thread?” I checked and told him it was not. “Then how many threads does it have?” he said. We talked about threads, and figures of speech, and now we await the loss of pearly white No. 2. I predict it comes out, oh, sometime around mid-February. Joey happened to have a barely wiggly one after school yesterday, too. It was out by 5 PM.

Mom and Joey: Same-size feet

Joey is tall. Really tall. He just turned 9 on January 3, and he’s a half-inch away from measuring 5 feet. He’s almost as tall as his Nanny, his feet are nearly bigger than mine, and the mom of the short boy he guarded during his last basketball game was not at all happy about the pairing. About his height, Joey said recently: “I don’t always like being tall.” I asked him why, and he told me people at school think he has had to repeat a grade. “Has anyone ever told you that?” I asked. “No,” he replied. “But still.” Yea, I gotcha, Joe. And that’s exactly why the kid must pass his FCAT test in March, because if he doesn’t, he must do third grade all over again, and there’s just no way he can actually repeat a grade. That would just look downright silly.

We think Danny has a photographic memory — the kid can recite parts of a nutritional label in a nutty accurate way. Sugar and protein are his favorites. Name a food or drink (mustard, ketchup, ground turkey, milk), and he’ll spit back spot-on numbers. The other day, I told each boy they could pick out a frozen treat at the grocery store. Danny picked Scribblers popsicles (no protein, 6 grams of sugar), and Joey grabbed for a package of Klondikes, which didn’t escape Danny’s glance. “Those are loaded with sugar,” he shouted at his brother. Sure enough — 23 grams of the stuff in each square of chocolate-covered goodness. Joey didn’t care, he picked them anyway, and we’re OK with that. I mean, we don’t eat too much junk at our house, so we figure it’s OK to enjoy an occasional treat.

Somehow, we got to talking a few days ago about behavior (the boys like to report on who was good and bad in school each day), and I told them that everyone has good qualities. No one is entirely bad. That’s when Joey said, “I don’t always do the right thing. But I always try my best.” I don’t think I can really ask for anything more. And that’s what I told him — just before I picked boogers off his bedroom wall.

Stay tuned. More to come.