boys will be boys

I have a baby who likes to be held all the time.  It makes it difficult to do the important things like get on facebook and write in my blog, let alone the more trivial tasks like laundry, dishes, and brushing my teeth.  Right now he is cozied up on the boppy on my lap.  Let's hope he doesn't roll off.


I know this is my last baby (that I want anyway) so I have been going crazy buying cute baby stuff!  I'm trying to control myself, but my friend Internet knows I have a baby and keeps sending me wonderful offers that are hard to refuse.  And Internet makes it so easy to purchase the amazing deals -- usually all I have to do is press a virtual button and in a few days it shows up on my doorstep.  I didn't even have to go anywhere!  Which is good since baby doesn't really like the car because I can't hold him for a few moments -- truly nightmarish in his opinion.


I did leave the house a couple of weeks ago to add to my fluffy diaper stash.  There is a local shop in someone's house so I went over to round things out.  I was enjoying talking to the owner when another customer came in with her little boy.  He was a few months younger than Phin and was acting like what he is -- a male preschooler, but she was on his case the entire time.  She pretty much kept her mouth running the whole time she was there so I just sat down in a rocking chair to watch and wait it out.  "So I'm having a baby and I want a few newborn things.  My son won't let the baby wear his diapers so I need some more things.  Precious!  Precious boy, don't jump.  Don't jump!  We don't jump.  I was thinking of some bamboo or hemp doublers.  Coleman!  Coleman Joseph!  We don't do that. (Looking at me)  Does your son like to jump?  I'm always telling him not to jump.  I bought some of those diapers, but that is because my daughter wanted those, but they are kind of expensive so can I return them?"  Blah, blah, blah.  Okay, you can't hear her voice which is a shame because when she called her son "precious boy" it was high-pitched and very grating, but perhaps you can see that on the one hand she's allowing her children to be very controlling by even caring whether the little boy wants the baby to use his old diapers and giving into her 5 year olds daughter's wishes for buying a really expensive diaper.  On the other hand, she was being overly strict with her little boy and thought that him wanting to jump down one step was way beyond the pale.  When she asked me if Phin jumps, I managed to fit in that yes, he jumps all the time, before she went prattling on again.  After observing her unrealistic expectations with her son for a moment I asked her if she knew the gender of her next baby and she said that it is a boy.  Heaven help her poor sons!  Hopefully she'll mellow out. 


It made me wonder if I'm too lenient, but for the most part I think it's okay to let boys climb, jump off things, run their little hearts out, bat sticks at one another...  Of course, I don't like guns at all -- not even water or bubble guns -- because then they walk around talking about killing people which is really not okay with me.  Charles would improvise by bending a barbie in half and shooting with her legs and Phin mostly uses his fingers and sometimes the bike pump, so I'm still being shot at on a daily basis, but at least I'm not condoning or encouraging it, which is worth something I imagine.  Hopefully it is the super fun sound effects which drives their behavior rather than a latent desire to be rid of me.