Having boys will break you.
It will make you give up on having a clean house, a bathroom that doesn’t smell like pee, and ever having a pantry full longer than a day after coming home from the store. It will make you wonder how any grown man made it into adulthood as you watch tricks and acrobatics and swing by the ER a time or two…or more.
Having boys will break you.
It will make you yell until you’re hoarse. It will make you wonder what you’re doing wrong while they wrestle and fist fight each other down the hallway into the kitchen. It will turn your yard from “cover of Better Homes and Gardens” into “Boo Radley probably lives there now.”
Having boys will break you.
It will make you question your parenting, your sanity, and everything you thought you knew. It will make you wish there was a book called What to Expect When Your Tween Thinks You’re the Dumbest Person Alive.
Having boys will break you.
It will make you the number one authority on fart jokes, Fortnite characters, Paw Patrol and Nerf guns. It will make you gleefully suck up tiny bits and parts and pieces of toys and action figures you swore you’d never buy in the first place.
Having boys will break you.
It will make you want to go back in time and tell 20-year-old you to stop judging the mom across from you in the restaurant letting her kid eat chicken nuggets off the floor, under the table, with an iPad blaring. It will make you give up on tutus and hair bows, dance recitals and gymnastics classes (only to realize you likely weren’t cut out to be that kind of mom anyway).
Having boys will break you.
It will make you tired. So so so tired. Like running the length of six football fields through peanut butter holding a cargo van on top of your head after swimming to China while having the flu after not sleeping for 72 hours tired. Maybe even more tired than that.
Having boys will break you.
It will make you play pirates and race cars and Legos and build things and climb things and crowdsource the internet for what the best ninja ropes course is to hang from two trees in your backyard. It will make you keenly aware that two arguing preteens can only unite and get along once they share a common enemy: you.
And just when you think you cannot possibly take anymore, it will break you in another way.
Having boys will break you when a chubby fist hands you dandelions and daffodils after running to meet you at the front door when you get home from work saying, “Mommy, I get these for you so you will be happy. Do you wove them?”
Having boys will break you when a moody, eye rolling half man with feet bigger than yours comes and lays in your bed and asks to watch TV together and eat popcorn, or thanks you for making dinner.
Having boys will break you when the one who usually keeps you at arm’s length puts his head on your shoulder and tells you he loves you.
Having boys will break you when they make you a present, out of a present they received, on a holiday when they notice they got something but you didn’t.
Having boys will break you when you overhear one on his Xbox telling his friends that his mom can do everything a man can do and regularly does and how he thinks that’s really cool.
Having boys will break you when you get funny memes and text messages from the ones you swore you’d never get phones for when you’re apart.
Having boys will break you when you sit on the couch and talk about the goose cartel and sing the best claws song and laugh until you can’t breathe while everyone else in the room stares like you’ve all gone insane.
Having boys will break you when at night, after the terror and trauma and hellfire each day with boys is sure to bring, you sneak in and look at their sleeping faces and fight the urge to gobble them up whole, because even though you may not always like them, you always love them.
Having boys will break you.
But sometimes you need to be broken.
