Brothers and Sons

WHOA!

One of the most difficult parts of having sons is that they remind me so much of my little brothers. To be honest, I was a horrible big sister. I teased, I tormented, I schemed and I set them up. So being the MOM of two squirty little boys really presents a problem for this woman that has been a mean big sister for most of her life. It's like karmic retribution or something.

For the most part I've behaved myself, but it's been difficult. There have been times I've had the irresistible urge to push either one into the dirt and laugh like a maniac - woo good parenting skills. Speaking of parenting skills, no one warns you what to do when these urges come on. If I lived in the days when women carried fans I would probably spend a good part of the time burying the screwed up look on my face behind one. Instead I've had to physically turn around. Other parents think it's to mask laughing outright at the goofiness of boys being boys, which okay, I've done that a lot too, but there have been times it has been to hide that weird look of shock of someone experiencing a flashback. My sons have done a lot of things that are dead on replications of their uncles twenty years earlier. It could be a smirk on their face, a tone of voice (actually the voices are nearly identical so this one hits me a lot), an obsession over a toy, but more often than not it's just boys being boys, wrestling, rough housing, running, or trying to eat something off the ground.

My way to cope with the conundrum is to step away from my mom-self AND my inner-big-sister and just watch the whole scene from a third party point of view. I think this is what has given me a quirky view of parenting in general.

So basically, as usual, it's all my brothers' fault.