The Difference is Amazing

Yesterday Abigail was having a very hard day. Her brothers were the "rudest, meanest boys ever". I have never really had a whole lot of sympathy for her because well, I never had any sisters, just a whole bunch of stinky brothers and I lived and survived. Yesterday I felt bad for her though. She just sobbed and sobbed as she laid on my bed telling me she had no sisters, therefore no best friends. I tried to tell her that one day she would have sisters, she would just have to wait quite a while. That is one of the great advantages of having so many brothers and marrying into a family of boys, you eventually get 8 sisters! I don't think that the pep talk helped that much though.


Later that morning my one of sister in laws came over and we ended up swapping kids for the day. Abigail went home with her to girl utopia and I kept her 2 boys. My sis in law said that she had SO much fun. Even though her girls are quite a bit older they play with Abigail so well. They swam, played all day, watched a movie, snuggled and in general there were no stinky boys to pester them. At my house it was a different story all together.......

I am used to boys. I grew up with boys and I have a few of my own. Testoserone runs quite thick here at our house. There is something different about having 6 boys as opposed to having 8 boys in your house for the day. It seems like the ante is upped quite a bit. The need to outdo each other is severe. I looked out the window at one point (well I looked out because I wanted to know what the crashing sound was) and I found this..

There is just something wrong with this picture. They are in 4 layers of clothes, scarfs, gloves, hats, oh and the very important spiderman mask. One might ask what they are doing. Did we have a cold snap? No the thermometer outside said 97 degrees in the shade! They were killing wasps. In order to perform this crazy feat one must be covered in as many clothes as possible to deflect the wasps stingers. Hands and faces must also be covered and then you take a stick, tennis racket, or any other such device and whack away. I hollered out to them to STOP hitting my gutters and were they a bunch of idiots? The reply was, "but don't you want us to kill the wasps before they sting you mom?" Funny thing is when they are sent out to mow or weed eat, it is just WAY TO HOT to be out there mom. We might get heat stroke or something. I came back inside to make supper to find the microwave door taped shut. Wha??

I took them over to the park to play their new found passion, frisbee golf. They don't play it like the other teams though. Oh, they try to make it into the goal like everybody else, but when they get to the pond, they all jump in to try and find abandoned frisbees. They came out of the woods soaking wet and hollering like banshees. Did we come prepared to go swimming? Of course not. They all stripped down to their underwear in the car and sat on their shirts. Let me tell you, the smell was nasueating.

When we hit the driveway, they all fall out of the van and have to race each other to the house. In their underwear. Later one of my nephews comes into the kitchen and asks one his cousins to smell his armpits to see if he needs deodorant. The consensus was a resounding yes, and after deodorant was applied he handed it back. Um, thats ok, you can take that one home with you.
There were many contests held throughout the day. The need to out burp, out run, out shoot, out ride, out eat, out poot, out pee yes really, out drink, out yell, and out play each other is vitally important in the world of a boy.

At the end of the day the dishwasher was filled with 29 cups, the washer held 2 loads of laundry from the wasp killing spree, (because you know if it is 97 degrees outside and you are wearing 4 layers of clothes, they are going to be very rank), we had gone thru 4 gallons of koolaid, eaten a 3# box of spaghetti noodles accompianed by 2 jars of sauce supplemented with a couple of jars of tomato sauce, eaten a salad with 2 heads of lettuce, numerous tomatoes and cukes from the garden and a loaf of bread.
Abigail came home with a smile on her face, her hair just as nice as it was when she left, and a strawberry smoothie in her hand lovingly prepared for her by her big cousin. I sent back home 2 sweet boys who smelled like arm pits and dirt. I missed my girl. She adds a little sparkle and femininty to our house that I never realized before. I won't take it for granted any more.