Play-dates with boys

Ok so I am entering into a new world of boy play dates. With girls, you go to pick them up, they come home, are quiet, play Barbies, dress up, Legos, what ever. They pretend that they are in these imaginary forests, and worlds that are enchanted. (Granted there is usually some evil mother symbol, thanks to dear old Disney) but never the less, they are quiet, and creative.

Boys? The way they interact is … well, interesting anyway.We go to pick up Henrys friend from his house, and immediately the boy showed Henry his "burp on demand" skills.

Henry giggling, says "That is very interesting" then continues the rest of the ride home to try to burp on demand...which he cannot seem to master, much to my pleasure. But this was the beginning of...well, BOY mode.They proceeded to scream from the moment they entered the house, running up the stairs as fast as they could to start an activity I like to call “shake the house down”

I cannot figure out what exactly they were doing, they were jumping, tumbling…or taking off drywall, I am not sure, but the entire house was shaking.

Thankfully, 4 year old boys seem to have the attention span of a gnat so that only lasted for a few minutes (before I had to go up and crack some skulls) and they were onto something new.

Did I say that I was thankful for the short attention span? OK so THAT was delusional. This short attention span turned into a continuous path of running from my sons room upstairs to the basement downstairs, with 1000 things in between… after they had played with every toy in the entire house for the allotted 10 seconds, they were bored.

Bored? Seriously??

I finally sent them down to play…I did not, however, for the benefit of my sons social future, give the “back in my day” speech about no such thing as play dates, and any mention of boredom led to more chores. The speech that always elicits the rolling of the eyes, and large sighs response. Secretly I don’t blame them, I got the same speech, as did my folks, and If I was a betting woman, I’d bet none of us appreciated the sentiment!

I have been checking on them periodically to make sure that they aren’t building bombs in the basement or somewhere they aren’t supposed to be (the girls rooms) and my son, who on a regular basis, just looks at me with love in his eyes, and says "I love you mom"... Now is in the basement and when I come down stairs he says: "WHAT? What do you want?"

I said nothing, and then he says "What? Why are you looking at me?"

(we will have a politeness discussion later and I doubt I will be polite about it!)

Somehow the extra Y chromosome in the room transformed his eyes from looking at me as lovable cool mom to “Persona non grata.”

He is worse than a teenager...is this a sign of things to come? I hope not. But Some where deep in the recesses of my heart, I am fairly sure that he is going to make me drop him off a block from school so he can walk in.

So I have just given in, I will listen carefully from afar and check on them periodically, and hope all gets calmer. Somehow when they see me they seem to think I am Julie McCoy cruise director, and am going to do something fun…I keep reminding them…”I am not that Mom”

So I am hoping if I stay hidden all will be ok.