Boys Will Be Boys

Wombat has a terrific sense of humor, and he’s funny himself to boot. (Please note the distinction, single women of America who go on reality shows and say they want a guy with a sense of humor when they really mean they want someone who’s funny.) About a year ago, Simon’s oldest friend–a man with a sense of humor and who also happens to be funny–visited the Bay Area and brought Wombat a box of jokey-type stuff: invisible ink, hand buzzer, long springy worm creature that pops out of a canister of “chips,” that sort of thing. Being an adult with an average-sized brain, I caught on to most the pranks after the first few times they were used, but there’s one item that’s been in play for more than a month now, and it still gets me every time.

Plastic poop, ladies and gentlemen. Because we like to keep it classy.

Here, maybe this is less upsetting. Or not, since it defies gravity?

One day, by a stroke of relative-for-me genius, I put our little plastic poop friend in Wombat’s top drawer, nestled realistically upon a set of superhero undies, and oh! oh! it was the best thing ever. I was lucky enough to be in the room when he discovered it. He froze in shock, his nose wrinkled quizzically, and then he turned to me and, seeing my snicker, returned it with a look that said, “You? Are the coolest mom IN THE WORLD!” I had to give myself props for that one, as I have long insisted I have a great sense of humor but am absolutely not funny at all except sometimes by accident. Yay me. Old dog, new trick!

My proudest moment, however, came the next day, when I opened my sock drawer and then jumped back two steps because POOP! Pooooooooop. Wombat had played me at my own game and it was AWESOME. Three years old and a total crack-up.

Since then, Simon and Wombat have been in cahoots over the poop. Poop cahoots. Capoops. I have found it on my dinner plate. It has surprised me on my pillow (the kind of turn-down service you never quite expect) (or want). Recent guests to our home have walked in our front door and seen out of the corners of their eyes a little swirl of feces that everyone steals horrified glances at but no one mentions until my son and husband launch into an elaborate scene about who pooped on the floor (“It was YOU!”) and who should clean it up with his bare hands right this minute, son. The whole thing is absurd, and those guests will probably never want to return, but goddamn is it sweet to see the boys bond, even if it is over artificial excrement.

And speaking of father/son bonding, they’ve roped the little one into the latest stunt:

I…I don’t know. I think it’s a guy thing.

You’ll get it when you’re older, kid.

When I found out we’d be having another boy (especially after having admitted two times in a row that we’d prefer a girl–oops), I was pretty freaked about what that would mean for the shape of our family and also for the demands it would put on me, the lone lady aboard this ship. I would have to become a Boy Mom. I would have to know about dinosaurs. I would have to build campfires. I would have to pretend to give a crap about soccer. I would have to…actually do NONE of those things because now I have two sons and a husband to do them for me! Huzzah! (Although I do know an awful lot about dinosaurs these days. Test me.)

All said, boys are a delight, though, and I definitely love watching them be boyish together, albeit sometimes from way over here across the room, thank you very much. The other night when Wombat was all up in Fox’s grill as per usual, Fox let fly a tremendous multi-tonal milk-belch right in his brother’s face, and in an instant my chuckle of mild amusement was drowned out by Wombat’s cheer and the thundering chorus of a thousand heavenly whoopee cushions trumpeting a fanfare of brotherly love. “Oh Foxy-boo!” quoth Wombat as verily he draped his long arms around the baby’s teeny-tiny shoulders. And it was good.

Meanwhile, Simon and the spare do this:

I imagine I’ll forever be an outsider when it comes to some of this stuff, but for now I’m just honored to have a backstage pass to the show.