Boys In My House

With the exception of the SeaMonkey..and some pets, we are a female household. This leads to a certain comfort zone that it can be hard to lift out of. When you have spent years wandering about in your pajama's and skipping that bra as long as you are in the house it can be disconcerting to have the sudden appearance of BOYS at the door. At least if you are modest like Littlest and me. Middlest is an exception to this. She flings bras about the house like Marti Gras beads, so there is usually one at hand in case of an emergency. On the couch. On the kitchen counter. Sometimes the pantry...

With Biggest married and Mid dating we had to come up with a system to deal with this inconvenience which consists of looking out the window when we hear a knock and then all sprinting to our rooms to change. Biggest knows to call first if they are coming by so I can get dressed. We are all pretty much stay in jammies until we have to leave the house kind of people.
However we do not feel comfortable sharing our ...jammi-ness with others.

Truly the fact is that we don't know what to do with boys. We don't know what to say to them. We don't know how to entertain them. We don't know what to feed them. And of course with each new one we have to learn to 'read' them. We first met my son in law 9 years ago and I'm just getting used to him. We are not very comfortable when it comes to company in general. We never rarely invite people over. We all feel like we have to be on our toes, even if the girl's friends are just over hanging out , because we are all such  introverted socially retarded dorks gracious hosts. Honestly, the SeaMonkey and I often just say hello to their friends and then go hide.

Over the years many boys have come by. They are rated in a system. Littlest used to rate them by whether they would play Lego's. Now it's whether they make fun of Anime when she turns it on TV and how they respond to her cheerful greeting of

"Why are there people here?"

I ask the girls to do something, say carry groceries upstairs. I see if the boys help without being asked. Most of them don't. My husband tends to be stand-offish at first and the girls say he is scary. The boys tend to avoid him...if he isn't already avoiding them.  If it looks like they will be around for awhile we drag out the scrapbooks and see how they act. Are they interested and think the girls elementary school memories are sweet? Or do they act like this is the stupidest thing they ever saw? This is one of Littlest's favorite tests as well.

Mid has been dating someone new for about a month. So it was scrapbook time but....he doesn't need to look. He was there. All through elementary school. He's actually in the book. But do you know what? He looked. At every page. Carefully.

He's carried groceries. Twice.

 I have to admit I found it hilarious recently that he stopped by one evening without notice and caught Mid, not just in pajama's but...no makeup-her glasses-something kind of sideways happening with her pony tail-a very old paint splattered t shirt-and bright green pajama bottoms with Mountain Dew logo's on them. He acted like nothing was unusual at all. But when she ran to her room for a quick change I glanced at him and he was smiling....like it was the cutest thing he's ever seen.

The other day he came by and Littlest had Anime on. She greeted him with a grumble and her best evil death glare as he sat down. And stayed there. He watched and made no negative comment. We were getting some Krystal burgers and Littlest had said she didn't want any. Then after we brought them home she changed her mind. She had one and then there was only one left and she went for it. I stopped her saying that she should offer it to our guest first since we didn't order with her in mind. She held it out to him, I'm sure thinking he would say, "no, you can have it". And then..... he ate it ; )

My husband and I are early people. Most nights 8PM we are in our bed reading and watching tv. Not ready for sleep but ready to relax and the girls are welcome to hang with us if they wish or not. Last Friday night before we left town The SeaMonkey and I were lounging about in bed. In our jammies. Mid's boyfriend had a jazz band performance and she was home. She came in and asked if it would be ok to go out when he was done. I said, sure, as long as she was home on time.

At 9:30 I heard Mid call "Mom" and she came to the door. I figured she was letting me know she was leaving.
She said "Um"...and then another head appeared behind her.

My husband and I sat frozen in bed in our jammies not sure what to do and trying to act natural. I had already done a panicked check to make sure the blanket was pulled up enough to modestly cover the thick green hooded chenille sweater I was wearing over my jammies because I was in between hot flashes. The young man hung back for just a moment before he walked on in to the middle of the bedroom and addressed my husband:

"Hey I have my trombone in the car. I was wondering if you wanted to try it?"

My husband said something like "thanks, but it's been a long time. The boy said something about having a certain kind of mouth piece and then hopefully,

"I have my Jazz music with me too? Are you sure?"

My husband begged off politely. But, you see, my husband used to play trombone and he loves Jazz.
The rest of us do not love jazz. I think the boy was hoping to play for us and maybe impress the SeaMonkey. I guess we could have had him get it and play a concert for us in our room but....no...too weird even for us. The kids wandered out of the room and I turned to my husband and said,


"Well, that was different."

It was more than different,  it was The Most Blatant Effort from one of their boyfriends that I have Ever Seen.

Later I told Mid to make sure he knew we would love to hear him play soon. Maybe just with more warning.

Because

We Kinda Like Him.


Moon Music




© 2010 All Rights Reserved