Tag: Raising boys

Brothers

by Ashley filed under Brothers

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Hooper, you’re becoming the master manipulator, like when you knew you weren’t allowed to watch TV so you had Van bring the remote control to Papa and had him ask instead. When questioned about it you replied, “I have Van do my jobs for me”.

 

Me: “If you don’t want Hooper to pull your hair, we can cut it”
Van: “Nooooo, I want to keep my hair on”

 

“Let me help him get on that booby”, said by you, Hooper, when Sonny was pecking like a wood pecker looking for my nipple. You also asked if we could call Sonny ‘drinker’ because he ‘drinks’ a lot.
“We better get out of here, Mom’s got serious face” – Van
We were at the beach when Hooper, you came running up to me while I was nursing Sonny, tears streaming down your face as you said, “My brother! My brother! He’s hurt”. Turns out that Van, you had stepped on a cactus, it’s thorn stuck a solid inch into your foot. You two may fight like cats and dogs, but you’re very protective of one another as well.

 

Van, whenever you have a friend over to play, you protect Hooper’s toys saying, “Don’t play with that, it’s my brothers”.

 

While cleaning out under the sofa:
Me: “Why is there so much garbage under the sofa?”
Van: “Well, sometimes we forget where the garbage is” (master of excuses)
Van to Hooper: “Hahahaha, look at Mom’s butt up in the air” (said as I’m crouched down like the bitch that I am picking up their trash)

 

Hooper & Van, I caught you both upstairs with your baseball gloves on using one of Sonny’s rolled up poop filled diapers as a ball.

 

I found you both in the downstairs bathroom with the door shut. Van, you were taking a dump and Hooper, you were dispensing candy that you had stashed away and hidden under the bathroom sink. I didn’t stop it nor confiscate the candy because it seemed as if hiding from your mom in the bathroom, taking a dump together, and eating stolen candy is like a right of passage.

 

“Let’s chase her and put peanuts in her butt” – Van to Hooper in regards to Hooper’s on-again-off-again girlfriend at school.

 

Hooper: “Mama, how come Sonny’s balls are bigger than mine?” (said while watching me change Sonny’s diaper while simultaneously pulling his underwear down to compare)

Me: “Because when you’re cold your balls get smaller”

Van: “Ya, his are bigger than mine too!!” (also pulls down his underwear to compare)

Hooper: (pointing at Van’s penis) “Look Van, your peep is big!”

Van: (proceeds to flex his “peep”, making it go up and down)

 

“Mama, he’s copying my words” – said by either of you depending on who’s being the copycat asshole in the present moment.

 

Then there was the sword fight in the bathroom that ended in a real fight and resulted on a fair amount of urine on the wall. At least you guys didn’t make fun of my butt while I cleaned it up.

 

Hooper: “Mama, I know why Sonny is crying”
Me: “Why?”
Hooper: “I pinched him because he pulled my hair”

Brothers

by Ashley filed under Brothers

Southern California Photographer-1121 Southern California Photographer-1124 Southern California Photographer-1131

I overheard you guys up in your room laughing and saying “Let’s go show mom our poo butts”. Moments later you both came running into my room, naked, and started sticking your little bums in my face.
You self sufficiently made yourselves your own breakfast the other morning. It consisted of leftover stale Cheetos. Which you shared. So there is that.

I had to break up a fight that involved one of you with your peep out threatening to pee on the other.

You’re both in a stick-your-tongue-out and spit phase. That’s fun.

You fight over cars that we pass by. It goes a little something like this, “Wow, Hoo-par, check out that coo car”, to-which-Hooper, you say, “I want it!”. This is always followed by an additional “No! I want it!”. And a full on fight breaks out over a car that doesn’t belong to any of us.

Along the same lines you recently saw a car tugging a boat and fought over who would be the captain.

You both like to take all your clothes off and tackle on the sofa. Not sure why you have to be naked for this to happen, but it’s definitely become a thing.

Every once in a blue moon you’re embrace each other with arms wide open and almost sarcastically say “it’s so nice to see you” as you embrace. I’m pretty sure you’re mocking me, but whatever.

We’ve caught you trying to kiss one another’s buttholes. It’s gotten to the point that your Papa and I have decided that the next time we see it happen we’re washing both of your mouths out with soap and water.

Hooper, you always want to wake Van up while he’s napping. Just. Can’t. Wait. To. Play. And then fight.

We put you to bed the other night but then found both of you, completely naked, standing in your bathroom pointing and laughing at the pee Van made on the floor. We re-dressed you and put you back in bed because doing it twice is so much more fun. As is cleaning up pee.

I’m realizing a lot of these tidbits have to do with poo, pee, butts and private parts, spit, or nudity. Welcome to our life at the moment.

Brothers

by Ashley filed under Brothers

Hooper tells Van to put his finger in the fan. He’ll do almost anything Hooper tells him to do. He’s touched several cacti around the house, per Hooper’s request.
Dance parties. They involve both boys hopping around on one foot and pumping one arm up in the air like a monkey.
They get upset about imaginary things that don’t even really happen, like when Hooper pretends to poor water out of an empty tube and Van comes crying to me about Hooper dumping water on him. Or when they’re strapped into their car seats and Hooper says, “Van, I’m going to hit you” even though he can’t even reach him and Van cries and tells on Hooper for hitting him.
They get asked often if they’re twins. It’s hard for me to see; they’re so different developmentally.
They spend the majority of their time at home in the garage, where they ride their bikes in small circles or build forts or play with dead cockroaches.
The other morning I heard Hoop say, “Van, your hair is so awkward”.
Both ask to see their poo. If I’m changing Van’s diaper, Hooper wants to see it. If Hooper takes a dump in the toilet, Van wants to see it. And Hooper wants to tell everyone all about his dumps.
Along the same lines, Hooper prefers that Van take him to the bathroom. Willy and I are always asked to wait outside, but he’ll pull Van by the hand and ask him to take him potty. I can hear them whispering to one another about really random things through the door.
They’re both eating a lot of raspberries because they like putting them on their fingers and eating them off. They giggle at one another the whole time.
Van is only bothered by a toy being taken from him half of the time. Unfortunately, this happens 1,000 times a day which means I’m guaranteed to referee at least 500 fights.

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Brothers

by Ashley filed under Brothers
It’s monkey see, monkey do around these parts as of late with Van being the monkey that sees and then the monkey that does but probably shouldn’t have. Like the day Hooper kept kicking me in the leg and you, Van, came up and started doing the same. Or when I scold Hooper for spitting only to turn around and find saliva catapulting out of your mouth. 
You still have a “hands-on” relationship and though the fighting has lessened to some degree, it definitely still exists. And whether it’s intentional or not, you both have battle wounds to show for it. Like the day you, Hooper, were running behind Van and accidentally sent him flying forward onto his face resulting in a nice size scrape next to his left eye. Or the other day when you both met around a corner resulting in your first shiner and a little bruise on Van’s forehead as well. 
You do like one another from time to time. The other day you, Van, brought Hooper his sippy cup and every now and again you, Hooper, will help your brother down from a step on the playground. These moments are few and far between, but ya know, they are there.

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A few things about boys

by Ashley filed under Brothers, Life, Motherhood, Parenting

As the mother of two boys, I cannot speak on behalf of raising a girl. What I can say is that when I was a teenager, I told my mom I hated her. More than once. I remember a senior trip to Mexico that my friends and I all planned on going to to celebrate graduation from high school. High school, as in I was seventeen and wanting to go to Mexico… where they flip you upside down and shake you after taking shots of tequila so it gets to your brain faster and where you can buy just about anything you need a prescription for here without a prescription, like Viagra. Not that I wanted Viagra or to be shook upside down for that matter. I couldn’t understand, at the time, why my mom wouldn’t let me go (somehow my dad got out of these things scotch-free… all my disgust was always directed toward my mom even when the decisions – like not allowing me to go to Mexico – were made between the two of them). Every boundary felt so personal; it never felt like a decision made for my personal well-being but instead like a decision made to ruin my life. In hindsight, it was out of love, of course.
When I became pregnant with Van a lot of the other nurses at work were hoping it was a girl. People told me I needed a girl. I couldn’t, and still can’t, wrap my head around needinga daughter. Karma is a bitch, so-they-say, and – well – the idea of having a daughter who will eventually hate me when I won’t let her go to Mexico because of fear she’d be gang raped doesn’t sound so peachy. When I found out Van was indeed a boy, there was a lot of sighs and encouragement to have a third. Willy wanted Van to be a girl as well. I always wanted him to be a boy. I always knew, even before becoming pregnant, that I would be a mother to boys. And yet, I felt this weird sort of disappointment when I found out Van was a boy; it was a feeling similar to “another husband?”… “but I already have one of those“. As the reality sunk in, it hit me that my disappointment was not disappointment at all but rather projected disappointment that others were feeling for me. It clouded my own excitement for what I instinctively knew all along: I was going to be the mother to two boys.
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I cannot sit at my computer for more than five minutes without one of my munchkins climbing onto my lap and requesting to watch a tractor video. These are not cartoons, but literally tractors working on construction sites. I know all about excavators, vacuum trucks, impact hammers, bulldozers, and dump trucks. Every Friday, you’ll find the three of us sitting curbside as the garbage trucks go by. Outside our front door is a beloved pile of sticks. I’ve had a worm in my bed. Hooper has told me he likes the dress I have on and he rubs my arm in a sweet loving embrace and tells me he loves me multiple times a day.
Sure, there will be hard times with boys too. It isn’t always going to be easy and fun. It isn’t always easy and fun even now. They too may hate me one day when I don’t let them go to Mexico. The point being, I don’t think I’m missing out.
I think of having a third often. The more my body heals, the less daunting it seems. I’ve always said I wanted three. And, for the record, it won’t be a final attempt at having a girl. I would love three boys.

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These Boys

by Ashley filed under Motherhood

I wonder if the magic of being a parent ever wears off? It seems that Willy and I still look at each other in disbelief over all we have created. My mom giggled the other day and painted a dirty nasty picture when she said, “Wait until one of them tells you they hate you”. I told my mom I hated her; I was 16 and I thought I was the cats meow. I also remember the time my mom forced me to take a picture in front of my car on the first day I drove myself to school. I flipped the camera off because I was so angry that she wanted to capture the moment. My mom did nothing but annoy me in my teenage years despite the fact that today she is a huge, and welcomed, part of my life (cheers to growing up and maturing, right?). I want to burst into tears at the mere thought that karma is a effin’ bitch and the time will likely come when I’ll be on the receiving end.
Dear Hooper & Van, don’t grow up. Love, Mom.

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