Adventures in Boyland

Boyland is not nearly as exciting as adventures in toyland and a whole lot louder, more cacophonous than even the clashing cymbal windup monkey toys.

 

It occurs to me that when I said time and again as a teenager and young adult that I like boys, someone was listening, but got their wires crossed. I didn't mean I wanted a gaggle of boys to watch over. I meant I would like one good one to date please.

 

My husband and I have five boys between us and his three are older and, well,  louder. They are physically bigger with deeper voices, so when they talk their voices boom through our cathedral ceilinged foyer and right into the room where I'm trying to sleep. Oh and they're nighthawks who play video games until the wee hours of the morning, 7 days a week, and if there's a problem with the internet for said games they come knocking on our door (like last night at midnight). They watch movies where things explode and play video games where they have to kill everything with large guns and explosives. And, they watch tv at full blast.

 

Dinner time is also an adventure where they discuss the latest Jackass movie or tell off colour jokes, or threaten to duct tape each others' mouths closed, or kill each other in their sleep. My single and childless girlfriends are soooo jealous of me!

  

When I tell people that I have five boys, I quickly add, three borrowed and two are mine. Otherwise people look at me like I'm too simple to know how to use, or have religious leanings that preclude birth control.

 

I am mad. Madly in love with their father, so I signed up for this adventure. Yes, maybe I'm crazy, but if I can survive five boys in one house, without going deaf or developing a twitch then it will only make me stronger right? Some days I think it might lead to early heart failure.

 

I won't be the tallest in the household or the strongest physically, but I am the only one who isn't afraid to have emotions and I know how to use them. When I feel like I've stepped into a Lord of the Flies nightmare and suspect there may just be a head around the corner on a stake, I ask my husband, nicely at first, to get a leash on the raging testosterone monster that is loose in our living room (the one that ripped our leather couch by barrel rolling over the sides). He obliges and relative calm is restored briefly. He also keeps me in red wine which helps.

 

When adventures in boyland become too much, I do what any woman would do, leave the house for the gym, the mall, the bar..... I consider driving until I run out of gas and/or credit, then sending a plane ticket for my husband to join me. Maybe the children won't follow. Why did we teach them to read and a few how to drive?

 

This Christmas we only have my two, so my husband will miss his and we will again have a full and lively house for New Years. Maybe after enough time off work and enough quiet nights of uninterrupted sleep, I'll get rid of that twitch, or maybe my husband will buy me new ear plugs and let me guzzle the champagne at New Years.

 

In boyland, you have to be careful what you wish for because you might get more than you imagined or can handle!