You Know You Have Boys When... (part 2)

You know you have boys when....

-You dread the sound of running water.....

-You hear funny noises coming from the laundry room...and after digging through the cave of the drier, you at last (with absolutely no shock or surprise whatsoever!) discover the swiss army knife or the bottle opener, wine corkscrew, miniature hammer, plastic army men, or any other item inevitably forgotten in the well used pocket of a miniature male.

-You find yourself utterly flabbergasted at times by the lack of concern over personal hygiene and/or discretion by the male species in general...adult male in the household included.

-Your ears have been specially trained to now  recognize letters of the alphabet in burps...

-You have resolved yourself to the fact that the bathroom will probably always have a lingering scent of urine, no matter how much you try to clean and cover it up with lemon-scented pinesol.

-You receive personally hand-picked flowers (often with weeds still intact!) just about every walk. (I will never ever tire of this most flattering gesture from my boys!)

-You begin to look at sticks with much more appreciation and imagination than ever before- suddenly you see endless possibilities for that unsuspecting piece of wood...Slingshot, anyone? Need a back-scratch? How about a nose-pick? Or even a fanny whack? Ah yes....the quintessential toy/tool/weapon of a boy.

-You could have sworn you bought a large package of .... oh, there it is...on the refrigerator shelf...empty.

-You are constantly amazed at something that might be called "selective learning" (and listening, for that matter!) Incredible how the same person can memorize every possible dinosaur name or tell you every imaginable quote from The Hobbit....yet, somehow, teeth are gonna have to be pulled in the near future over memorizing Latin declensions and math times tables!!!!

-You enjoy the ritual every evening of re-tucking the sleeping children in, eagerly waiting to see what the boys are sleeping with tonight....the Superman book from the library (now most likely in need of being replaced after one too many nights of falling asleep while reading and rolling all around on the open pages!); the soccer medal won this week for Sportsmanship during the soccer game; the Hobbit journal from a birthday party, with pencil marks all over said sleeping child's face, who evidently fell asleep while writing in said journal; the bottle opener/wine corker kitchen appliance (evidently a Swiss army knife substitute, while the Swiss army knife went missing...only to be found the next day in- yep, you guessed it: the dryer!); the new Saint medal so generously given by the Church's gift store clerk; the new book, completed school project, favorite birthday toy, or newly created gadget... each one so ever endearing to a mother's heart, holding a priceless story behind it and capturing a little peak into that particular child's heart.........that is, if the boy isn't soaking wet, sleeping blissfully unconcerned and unaffected, in his own urine-soaked bed. Then, the sweet little items in his hands/under his pillow are swept off the bed without much ado, and you go into Mission: Sleeping Child JigSaw Puzzle...find a place for each child to sleep, now that one bed it unusable for the evening.    (okay, I must confess, there has been maybe once that I was too tired to move a child. There, I said it. Yes, horrible, awful, shameful me. I let the sleeping, wet child, sleep. And I went back to bed. And didn't lay awake guilt-ridden. But only once. Truly.)

-You have learned to 'look the other way' and say a prayer to Guardian Angels many many times a day!!!!!