Sometimes I feel really bad for my daughter being in a house of mostly boys. If it wasn’t for me, she’s be truly the only girl because even the cats are boys.
Don’t get me wrong, she totally holds her own against her brothers. She is after-all a tom boy and when that doesn’t suit her, she is bossy as hell which she comes by naturally because she is my daughter.
It’s just that no matter how much she tries to be like the boys, she can’t be a boy. Those natural born, genetically given, imprinted girl tendencies will always come out . She can’t help it which means no matter how hard she tries she, like me, will never fully understand boys.
For example, whacking a tree with a stick. The boys do this. They get great joy in performing this task and will go at it for hours on end but when asked to explain why? Why do they do this? They will just shrug their shoulders and pick up a rock to throw at other rocks.
It makes no sense to me. I have just come to the conclusion that there it must have something to do with the penis. There must be something in that organ that makes these acts make sense to them. And since I will never have a penis, I will never understand it.
Claire is slowly grasping this concept.
It’s difficult for her. All she knows is brothers and their weirdness and since she wants to be included with her brothers and their play, it’s a daily struggle. But sometimes, when she’s feeling girly and those female tendencies are at their highest and she can’t take it anymore.
“… yeah and then Elmo’s head will explode,” Jake said in between bites of waffle.
“Next his body. It’ll explode all over the street,” Quinn chimed in making Jake and Hayden snort with laughter.
“And his purple blood will be all over the place making the buildings explode,” Jake said, gesturing with his hands.
“The explosion will be HUGE… EPIC!” Hayden added.
“Elmo’s exploding head,” Jake said, now beside himself with laughter.
“STOP IT! STOP IT!” Claire yelled at the top of her lungs across the breakfast table which made the boys laugh harder and broke me of my Facebook reading trance.
“Claire, don’t yell,” I scolded.
“But mom,” she whined. “Make them stop. Tell them to stop talking about explosions.”
When she said that word the boys snickered and giggled again like they were all 13 and in a room where there was naked boobies.
I sighed at her request. My sluggish not fully caffeinated brain trying to comprehend what was happening.
“Boys, stop it,” I said halfheartedly, just trying to keep the peace.
Claire gave me her, ‘mom that’s totally not gonna work’ look because she thinks at times she is a better mother than me and pushed back her chair to take her dirty dishes to the sink. The boys once again started discussing Elmo’s head exploding and purple blood going every where.
“Why do they have to talk about exploding so much?” she said looking at me, waiting for an answer that would enlighten her.
“I don’t know,” I said after a sip of coffee.
She wasn’t satisfied and she stared at me, her eyes begging for knowledge and understanding.
Then I felt like I could keep the secret no longer. I had to give it to her, I had to give her the only answer that has been keeping girl’s (and women) sane since the beginning of time.
“Boys are dumb.”
