Girl meets boy

Girl meets boy
I first laid eyes on my son seconds after he was pulled from my body, still covered in blood and goo, a little blue around the edges, and tears pricked my eyes. They rushed him away to clean, weigh, and whatever else they do, and I marveled to myself, "I have a boy".

I had been apprehensive of him ever since I found out that he was a 'him' rather than a 'her' around the fifth month of my pregnancy. I grew up the oldest of five girls, with no boys around except for my dad. I was not a girly girl, but I wasn't a tomboy either. I was just…a girl. Our childhood play was very orderly and nurturing. Store, school, doctor, house, carnival, baptism (my dad was a pastor – what can I say? You play what you know.) Dad played the dual role of father and big brother by roughhousing with us, barging into our store with a gun and announcing a stickup, shoving a football in our gut and yelling 'Tackle!', among other things. I was secretly glad we didn't have a real brother, if this was how boys were.

Then I got a boy of my own, and with him, my own personal invitation to BoyWorld.

At the beginning, there wasn't much of a difference. Infants are infants, no matter what the sex. The diapering took getting used to, but that shock was minor. He cuddled up against me in the middle of the night, and in my love-clouded haze, I thought, 'Bring it on'. Then the boy-ness kicked in.

He jumps, he runs, he hurls himself from the highest heights, just for the fact that he can. All day long I hear, 'Watch me, Mom! Look at this, Mom! How fast can I go, Mom?' He stops for a moment to rest and that moment turns into a wrestling match with the dog. He launches himself at me daily, with the blind faith that I will catch him, no matter what, even if I happen to be completely turned away from him with an armful of groceries and a pitcher of water at the time. I can almost see his energy brimming over the top of him at times, ready to burst forth and flood everything around him. And I have yet to see him walk by his younger brother without delivering a nudge, push, or bonk on the head.

The silliness of a boy knows no bounds when it comes to potty humor. I was expecting to deal with it around age six or seven...not three. Favorite words of girls: princess, bride, sparkles, kitten, cute. Favorite words of my son: butt, poop, pee, punch, penis. Followed by gales of laugher. I have to lay down the law when it comes to these words in inappropriate settings, but I have to fight my laughter each time he joyfully recites them.

He loves bugs and animals and notices them long before I do. He digs for worms in my garden, squatting down to let them squirm over his fingers. He is always willing to let whatever insect has gotten in the house crawl onto his hand in order to take it back outside. The other day, we were leaving the river and my husband was throwing bait fish back in the water. I watched him toss them one at a time until I realized that there were two splashes. I looked down to see my son gleefully plunge his hand in the bucket, close his hand around a wriggling fish and throw it out as far as he could.

And in the middle of all the exploring, the running, the jumping, and the silliness, he suddenly grabs my neck with such fierceness, presses his flushed cheek against mine, and says in my ear, "I love you mom', and for a brief moment, I get to hold my son still. And then he's off running again, pulling me deeper into the mysteries of BoyWorld.

October 14, 2007