Tuesday, June 7, 2011

"I Boy!"

For the most part this blog for me is about venting. Having a space to share all the thoughts that go through my head, the passions that wreck havoc on my brain, to solidify my opinions, and hopefully in some small way to educate.

But today, I want to write about my boys. I usually save this stuff for Elijah's journal or special notes to Josh, but today there are some things I would like to share with everyone.

I will start with the littlest one...
When I was pregnant we did not find out the gender of our child before he was born. I really would have been happy with either, but if I am completely honest, part of me wished it was a girl. I am not sure why I wanted a girl other than I am girl and I feel like I know girls. Maybe it has a little something to do with the rough and tumble, sports crazed, hyperactive stereotype that exists around little boys. All I can say for sure it that it had NOTHING to do with pink.

But the special boys in my life have always been more than that stereotype and many times have had many of the characteristics typically associated with girls. My nephew is an exceptionally sensitive soul very in tune with his emotions, "my" Nicholas is a caretaker. He loves children younger than him and is so sweet and gentle with my son.

Speaking of my son, he is all BOY in the gender sense. He is active, he is rough, he is easily overstimulated and can turn into the Tasmanian Devil with an arm that resembles a pitching machine. There are times when anything he touches gets chucked across the room. But he is gentle too, LOVES real live babies probably more than his vehicles (although I am sure some could argue the opposite at certain times), enjoys changing his dolls diapers, and can make a mean "asta" in his play kitchen.

The there is my Joshie, my partner, my confidant, my rock. He is the single most sensitive man I have ever met. His emotions are always written all over his face. And he is a baseball fanatic. I swore I would never marry a man that was obsessed with sports. So much for that plan! Instead, I married a guy that avoided asking me to marry him at Dodger's stadium ONLY because he thought it would make me say NO. He was right ;).

For the past week, my son has started to play around with gender terms I assume in an effort to understand it better. He asks "Daddy boy?", "Mommy boy?" and so on including the cat and strangers on the street. He FREQUENTLY throughout our day will state, "I BOY!" Not just once, but several times in a row almost as a song: "I Boy, I Boy, I BOY!" When he wakes up from nap, "I Boy!" When he is angry, when he is sad,"I Boy!", when he is walking down the sidewalk otherwise lost in thought he will whisper, "I Boy". It has really got me thinking a lot about his discovery of this term, what I hope he grows up defining a BOY to be, the kind of person and Man I hope he becomes.

And then I think of Josh, the ultimate example of what a man is to our son. Tonight I saw the sides of Josh integrate. We went to his baseball banquet for which he is the head coach of the JV team. As with each year, my husband delivered a speech about each of the boys on his team with such detail and insight. He was able to clearly illustrate their strengths as well as their weaknesses. He was confidant in his knowing of these children. His love for the game of baseball and his love of coaching and working with his students on and off the field poured from him with such sincerity it eclipsed all of the CIF baseball MVP's in the room. I was so proud to be his wife.

There are times when I worry that Elijah will learn from stereotypes to define being a BOY as limited to only those things typically associated with such and I shutter to think that he will ever utter a phrase like, "pink is a girl color". But when I really step back and remember who he has as a father, I realize the worry is for naught. The example my husband gives him day in and day out is enough to make any little boy a phenomenal man.

So yes Elijah, you are a boy.

I adore my BOYS!