Snips and Snails

Having a little boy has been quite the experience. I comment on this today because the gals at work and I were talking about having to live with boys compared to girls. Those of you who only have girls may feel like you're missing out, or maybe after this you will be grateful.

Boys are gross. I sometimes think that maybe it's just my boy, but it's not. Every Mom I talk to that has little boys (with the exception of a few) can relate to my stories of jeans that stand up on their own from caked on dirt, stories of inappropriate nudity, stories of finding a frog in the sink upstairs because "he asked me to keep him." In any case, even being kind of a tomboy when I was a kid, it is hard to relate for his passion for all things dirty, creepy or gross.

It seems there is some fundamental issue with taking a shower as a little boy. I'm pretty sure that if I didn't MAKE my son take a shower he never would. This morning he whined when I told him that he HAD to take a shower. (A week is too long to go!) When I heard the water turn off I opened the shower curtain to give him a towel. There he was, soap covering half of his back, his hair not even wet on two thirds of his head. This was our conversation:

Mommy: You didn't wash your hair?
Logan: I did!
Mommy: Your hair is still dry!
Logan: No it's not.
Mommy: Yes, it is. I'm looking at it and it's dry. You have to do it again.
Logan: But I washed it!
Mommy: You still have soap on your back. You need to get back in.
Logan: I will wipe it off with the towel. The water is cold now?!?!
Mommy: Too bad. You should've done it right the first time!

Besides the shower thing, he does tons of other gross stuff. He announces his bodily functions, he works on burping the alphabet, he cannot seem to ever let go of his junk, he hates to wash his hands after he goes to the bathroom, the list is never ending.

Now, I am proud of his unrelenting desire to become a biologist. And I am not even really that freaked out by creepy crawlies and bugs and frogs but I still am not as comfortable as he is around these things. He can spend hours outside exploring the landscape. He can't wait until spring for when the lizards and frogs come out of hibernation. He is dying to find out how many snakes he'll find this year by the pond. He wants to keep everything he catches AND he wants you to be as excited as he is about holding all of these things. Here he is last summer:

This is after he let the other 2 go

Last weekend, when he and Daddy were out cutting and moving all the downed trees from the snowstorm, Daddy found this:

Logan was dying to put it in one of his habitats - but this guy was too big for that. Daddy convinced him it was probably the best for the salamander to be put back where he was found.

Today it was beautiful out! The sun was shining, it was unseasonably warms and as I walked the new puppy down to get the mail Logan asked to go play with the neighbor boy. I told him he had an hour, that he had to wear his watch, and that he better not be late (we are working on rebuilding trust after some issues last year.) At 4:18 I heard the front door open. Here was our conversation:

Mommy: Log, is that you?
Logan: Yeah, can I take a shower?
Mommy: Are you still outside?
Logan: Yes.
Mommy: Why do you need to take a shower?
Logan: Come see me.

I walked around the corner to the front door to find my little red-headed boy covered in dirt from head to toe. "Mom, we found another piece of a spring that runs by the creek and so we dug a whole bunch of it out and diverted it into the creek and we found an egg that must've been a turtle's egg because Asher has found a turtle egg before and it looked just like it and I had SO much fun but I got dirty but it's really nice outside and I just want to thank you so much for letting me go play and Whew! This was the best day ever!"

If you've ever met Logan you will read that and be able to hear it coming from him. He talks A LOT! He goes a mile a minute, especially when he's excited about something , and punctuation is just taking up time that he could be telling you something else that was, "AWESOME!"

And so he's gross. I have to remind him to take a shower, I have to remind him to wash his hands, I have to remind him to brush his teeth, I have to scold him when we're at the store and he stops and says, "Wait for it....," but he's mine and I love him just the same.

It's true that raising boys is nothing like raising girls. I'm just glad I get the opportunity to do both.