things boys say
It amazes and horrifies me how boys speak. Professor Calculus (not his real name) is good at everything he tries. He is a natural born fill in the blank. He has more pride and gumption than me and Sparky put together which is a lot considering my share.
He's got it all. Talent, brains, good looks, social skills. But do you think he can let the Chicken Whisperer one moment in the limelight? Silas, Chicken Whisperer would not ever, ever ask for it. He doesn't love the limelight, he loves his chickens. He is just a good, wholesome boy who wants to do the right thing. His virtue does irritate the Professor.
But what irritates him more is that Silas gets positive attention for his poultry husbandry. So he likes to take him down a notch, now and again, to prove that Silas is getting to big for his britches. So the other day I overhear the Professor telling Silas that his chickens aren't actually that big of a deal. He said, and I can actually hardly believe that I'm telling this in a public way,
"I could kill one of your chickens with my bare hands
and not even lose sleep."
Direct Quote. I kid you not. If I had continued to have only girls in my family, and I heard some other family's boy say this, I might have a mind to recommend a qualified therapist for child sociopaths.
I wait. For the emotional crush that the Tenderhearted Boy will experience. But he also is a boy and, taking it all in stride, he says, "No you can't." Conversation over.
But much to my disdain as a mother, boys like to talk like this. If my daughters got hurt in the bushes, they would come and say, "Oh, look mama, I got and owie and there's a drip of blood! Can you put a princess bandaid on it?"
My sons, having received the very same wound in the same manner, would say something to the effect of, "Mama! I was flying through the slash, and the branches were just whipping my whole body, and one nearly ripped my eye right out of its socket. I totally gouged my shin on a sharp stick, it just hacked right into my skin and mangled my leg. It's like mutilated. Wanna look? It's so cool, I could have been killed. From loss of blood or pain or anything."
They are just a whole paragraph of talking tough, of run-on, onomatopoeic embellishments.
At some point they have all desired to memorize a certain poem for their memory work.
It’s "The Eagle" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring’d with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
It’s tough, it’s hard. The words are happening. They are the eagle. They own this poem.
Ogden Nash, while a family favourite, has been a most particular favourite with the males.
"The Centipede"
I objurgate the centipede,
A bug we do not really need.
At sleepy-time he beats a path
Straight to the bedroom or the bath.
You always wallop where he’s not,
Or, if he is, he makes a spot.
I can only imagine what poor Ogden's mother went through. "Ogden, you can't write poems like that, teacher will call home." I know for sure that Ogden either was a boy, or he had boys. If you have boys, I highly recommend reading "The Boy Who Laughed at Santa Claus" also by Ogden Nash.
More on boy poetry later. If you want boys to write, teach them how to use a thesaurus. It will help them find guy words.
