Scrabble is one of my favorite games!  But, as you know, I live will all guys and most guys just don't get too excited over a game whose main strategy is to spell.  But I am dragging them along anyway.  Playing an entire game usually takes a while since they have a knack for coming up with all sorts of misspelled words, and words that don't even exist. 
"I can spell  D-O-C"
You can't use doc, it is short for doctor.  It is a nickname.
"Well, I it could be the  D-O-C  as in: the boat pulled into the doc."
That is D-O-C-K
"oh!"
This goes on forever on each turn.
I want to keep the game fun so I am very tempted to just let the misspelled words go, jot them down and then add them to their spelling lists but I just cannot bring myself to do it!
They come up with some doosies!  I must have repeated the phrase "that's not a word" at least 50 times this last game.
"How about I add  E-X-A  in front of this word "heron" so that I can get the triple word score.  It would spell the word  E-X-A-H-E-R-O-N"
Uh - good try - but thats not a word.
"Oh well, LIVE a little mom!"
And so my agony continues.  Two hours later we finish.
Suprisingly, they still enjoy playing the game.  The son who slows the game down the most with all his non-words and misspellings actually had the nerve to say:
"You know, this game would be much better if it just went a little faster". 
You think?

As you all know, I live with all "men".  Five of them to be exact.
I am not sure why, but I seem to be the only one in this house who knows how to change a toilet paper roll!  My guys seem to have some sort of phobia about changing toilet paper rolls, and with this many boys and 3 bathrooms – it’s a lot of toilet paper! 
I call it "change-the-roll-aphobia".
The more I complain about my frustration, the more I find moms of boys with this same problem.  Apparently, this is a phenomenon that women have been baffled about since the invention of these handy little rolls. 
Every time I walk into a bathroom with an empty roll it drives me crazy.  I cannot understand how they can be so thoughtless, careless and all those other "lesses".  But the more I watch my boys and observe what makes them tick I realize that no matter how hard we try and how much we nag, these boys are just not made to do this kind of job. 
God built boys to conquer, to lead, to take on every challenge, and to protect the weak.  Somehow, changing the toilet paper roll just doesn’t fit into what they were put here for.  Where is the excitement, the challenge, the adventure?  It’s no wonder they don’t want to stop for a second to change a toilet paper roll!
It doesn’t mean that they physically cannot do it, or can’t be trained to do it.  But once it dawned on me why they behave this way, I decided to let that frustration go.  They are so fun to watch and learn from.  I am learning to enjoy and laugh at our differences and find joy in serving these future men.  I have decided that I am not going to mention the toilet paper roll again.  I am just going to bless their socks off by taking care of this job myself and smile every time I am met with an empty roll.
So . . . Toilet Paper Blessings it is!  They might not even notice, but I am going to delight in serving my house full of men in this small way, knowing that they are probably in the middle of some thrilling adventure!

If you have ever watched the original Funny Moms video I am sure you just have to smile when you hear the phrase “Stop - at - the - period - honey”.
And though we are past that phase in our school journey (Thank you Jesus!), we still have challenges when it comes to reading.  Most of our challenges go along with that other popular Funny Mom skit with the mom begging her kids to “please, just FOCUS”.  Oh yeah, I know you know what I mean!
We are studying the civil rights movement right now and since we had more time than usual today, I decided to add a little extra reading aloud. 
In studying Martin Luther King, Jr., we are of course listening to his famous “I have a dream” speech, but I also found lots of additional information that I never knew before.
I never learned (or just don’t remember) that his name was originally Michael.  That was new to me!  Other than his “dream” speech, I have never read many of his other writings.  One noteworthy sermon I found to assign is titled “The Drum Major Instinct”.  My oldest is reading it this week. 
Another very interesting work of MLK’s is a letter called the “Letter from the Birmingham jail”.  Once I started reading this letter I could not stop.  It was written to fellow clergy and in it he answers their criticisms about the choices he is making in this movement.  He shares his views on civil disobedience and non-violent direct action.  I found it all very interesting. 
So, I don’t know why I thought this, but I figured my “men” would find this all just as fascinating as I do, and proceeded to gather all four boys and hubby around to listen to me read the 9 page letter that I found so intriguing. 
It took forever just to get everyone settled and comfortable in one room!  Hubby went to get out of his work clothes while I started off the conversation with the opening paragraph explaining the general overview of the civil rights studies that we will be embarking on for the next few weeks . . . .
“As you know, for the rest of this unit we are studying the civil rights movement in America and” . . .
”For the rest of the year?!”
”No, for the rest of this unit.  Anyway, In the 1950’s” . . .
“How long is the unit?”
”This unit ends in five weeks.” . . .
”We will be done with school in 5 weeks!!!?” (astonished happy looks with mouths wide open!)
”No, no, we will not be done with school in five weeks – we will be done with this unit in five weeks.”
Ryan tries to help me out here: “Guys, guys, it doesn’t matter – just listen.”
“So, In the 1950’s and 60's” . . .
“But wait - how many units are there?”
”Our school year is broken down into 4 sections (or units) which each last about 9 or 10 weeks.  We are in unit 3 which has 5 more weeks and then we will start unit 4 which has 9 weeks and then we will be done with school for the year. OK?” 
Now, having thought I had every possible answer covered I began to read again . . .
”In the 1950’s and 60’s black Americans” . . .
Only to be interrupted with
”mom?”   -  ”what’s puberty?”
I just cracked up laughing!  My oldest just couldn’t resist and had to chime in with the most random, off-topic question he could think of just to make me laugh.  And it worked.  It took me quite a while to gain my composure!  We had a great laugh and after that were finally able to FOCUS and read that long letter. 
And I wonder why I never seem to get anything done!

We all know about gender gaps.  How boys & girls communicate differently, how they feel differently, and even how they hear differently, but now I am a firm believer that we even SEE differently!  My good friend over at Life Among da Boyz  posted about how she has to "ASK' her boys to help pick up around the house and tell them exactly what needs to be picked up.  This cracked me up because just today I had a similar experience and have come to truly believe that boys just don't "see" things the way us moms do!  Today I was telling one of my boys to pick up the front room because he was having a friend come over.  He came back in like 2 minutes to proudly announce that the room was finished and ask what his next chore should be.  Well, I was not born yesterday, and I wasn't in any way going to believe that the room could be picked up in 2 minutes!  I told him that I KNEW it could not possibly be done already and he said "Well, "I" think it is clean and I don't know what else to do in there".  So we went in there together and I pointed out to him that there were socks on the floor, big chunks of fuzz - don't ask - all over the carpet, cups on the bookshelf, and books shoved into corners - only "I" am allowed to use that technique in this house thank you very much!. 
He responded by saying "OOOOOHHHH!" as if surprised by these revelations!  Like somehow the scales fell from his eyes and finally he could really see.  I then proceeded to list EXACTLY what should be fixed. But, honestly, I could see his eyes glazing over, his mind wandering to some far off dream land like the town of "Perfect" in those Walgreens commercials. . . .

A town where boys never have to pick stuff up or clean.  They never have to do chores, bathe, or cut their hair.  A town called Perfect . . .

So, to save us both the frustration I made him a short check off list and that worked.  He knew exactly what I was wanting him to do and he felt a sense of accomplishment (and relief) when everything on the list was crossed off.

I really do believe that boys (guys in general) see the world differently than we do so I need to remind myself to be very specific, assign tasks in short spurts.  It makes me wonder what things they "see" in the world that I'm missing!

A friend of mine was telling me about MOPS - Mothers of Pre-schoolers.  It is a support group where mothers of pre-schoolers get together to encourage one another, share ideas and stories, and watch each others children for a few hours so those moms can have some alone time.  Apparently, this is a HUGE organization with groups all over the country.  And since I don't have pre-schoolers anymore, I think I should start one of these little thingies for mothers of boys!

I have even planned some themes and activities:
- Bring your own "How to cook for 12 recipes" (even though you only have 4 boys because they eat like there are 12 of them)
- Hose em' down day: Moms, let's get em' REALLY clean
- Teaching Boys and other children who would rather make forts all day: listen to Andrew Pudewa's wonderful boy advice
- Laundry support 101: how to get over the pink underwear thing and let them do their own laundry

Now, I just have to come up with a good name.  Instead of MOPS, I will call it
MOBS: Mothers of Boys Surviving
This is just the kind of support group I need and MOBS is the perfect acronym!

I live in a house full of guys.  I know - don't you feel sorry for me!  The only other females in this house are our Jack Russells and they are no help!  When we get a chance to sit down and watch TV together the guys usually watch some testosterone pumping manly show like Dirty Jobs, Future Weapons, or Build It Bigger or whatever it is called.  Now, I am not a girly-girl by any stretch of the imagination but if I have to watch another show that is about blowing things up, building things, or catching lobster I am going to scream!
So tonight when my hubby said that he rented the Planet Earth series for us to watch, I was thrilled!  What a breath of fresh air!  I had seen previews and knew this was a show I could enjoy.  I wouldn't have to smile and pretend I am enjoying it while secrectly writing the next book in the For Dummies series titled "Living with Boys for Dummies".

Well, wouldn't you know it, this Planet Earth show (all about caves), was a boys dream come true!  We weren't even five minutes into the show when they start showing a really gross pig-looking blind salamander and clear slimy worms whose butts glow in the dark (I'm not making this up)! 
It gets better . . . Deer Cave in Borneo is home to five million bats. Their droppings are in a pile so huge it takes quite a bit of time and energy to scale it (we watched those brave camera men do it in the diary portion of the cd).  The whole massive pile of droppings is covered with millions of dung-eating cock roaches and other insects. 
After talking about stalagtites and stalagmites, we learned of snottites.  Yes, I did say snottites.  "Snottites" are slimy bacterial stalactites found in one of the caves on the episode.  These things look just like a two-year-old's runny nose, and just to prove I am not lying, here is a picture:

As most guys will tell you, you have to see it up close, in HD, on a huge wide screen to really do it justice but trust me - these snottites were disgusting! 
Well, the show sure was "EDUCATIONAL", just not the type of show I want to watch snuggled up to hubby with a glazed donut and coffee - yuk!  Watching TV with guys is just a bummer, but I'll sit through 6 hours of The Twilight Zone or Myth Busters over this show anyday!

We seem to have the strangest dinner conversations!  Here's an example from tonights meal:
Out of the blue comes the question "If someone offered you $1,000 would you eat a billion peas?"  This question was posed by Joseph who as you can tell is the deep thinker of the family. 
Everyone proceeded comment on how it would depend on how long you had to eat them, or whether or not $1,000 was enough money, etc.  Joseph said it would be worth it to him.  He was the only one!   No suprise there.
Daddy told him he would end up like the blue girl in Willy Wonka - only he'd be green.
That led to a conversation about the movie Willy Wonka.  Whether the older one was better than the newer one, and how those midgit guys pretty much gave everyone nightmares.
That led to Joseph's next question which was "My worst nightmare is crashing on a plane in the desert and the only cargo onboard is peanut butter - what's yours?"  (I think he must have been pondering that one for a while!) 
So we all shared our worst nightmares which ranged from being charged by a bull to being lost at sea with sharks all around. 
This led to a conversation about my fear of the ocean and how I, if lost at sea, would want to die not because of the sharks but because of the fish poop that I KNOW is floating all around me.  (They tried to convince me that the ocean filters itself and all that jazz but I explained that while the ocean IS it's own filter, that that filtering takes some time, and right at that moment when I am stranded at sea I KNOW some fish are pooping RIGHT THEN and it hasn't been filtered yet!)  Then they reassured me that a lifeguard would save me before I died.
That led to talking about lifeguards and how important their job is and if it so important why do they hire 15 year olds and pay them $5.00 an hour? 
Then we began talking about lifeguards at pools and some of the ridiculous politically correct pool rules they seem to have such as "no splashing"! 
Then I began to wonder how we ever got to talking about pools anyway!  How did we get here!?  Tracing our conversation back it all seemed so random.  And to think all that fun at dinner time started with "If someone offered you $1,000 would you eat a billion peas?"