Raising Boys Is a Full-Contact Sport

By Rachel Balducci

With hilarious true stories and observations, this laugh-out-loud celebration joyfully explores the sweet and wild side of boyhood.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
• Release date: Sep 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781441239792

Rachel Balducci

Rachel Balducci is a writer, blogger, speaker, and cohost of The Gist on Catholic TV. She teaches journalism at Augusta University. She is the author of How Do You Tuck in a Superhero?, Make My Life Simple, and Overcommitted. She has been a columnist for the Southern Cross for fifteen years, served as a reporter for the Augusta Chronicle, and taught middle school and high school English and history at Alleluia Community School. Balducci earned a bachelor’s degree from Georgia State University and a master’s degree from the University of Georgia. She was a regular guest on the Jen Fulwiler Show and has appeared on many Catholic TV and radio shows. She lives with her husband, Paul, and their six children in Augusta, Georgia.

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Introduction

The Grass Is Always Greener

It is the fortieth anniversary of my mom and dad’s wedding. My siblings and I have decided to celebrate with a party. We will be inviting a few hundred of their closest friends, and because it is spring, we are having the party in my backyard.

My backyard. The one I use to corral my five sons.

The thing about my backyard is, it’s very proud of its heritage. My grass screams at the top of its botanical lungs that BOYS LIVE HERE, and you’d better not forget it.

How can I forget it, is what I’d like to know. Seriously, I ask myself this question nearly every single day. How, I wonder aloud, can I mask the reality of my life? It’s not that I want to hide the fact that I have boys, but some days it would be nice not to have the lawn advertise our genetics.

One evening as I walked around my yard to prepare for the party, I made note of the state of things. There are bald spots in the grass—I don’t know the exact number because there are so many spots that I’m inclined to just count the grass instead. There is a giant mound of dirt in one corner of the yard, where the boys go to mine for treasure or dig to China. There is a lovely birdfeeder attached to the garage—it hangs at waist level and gives the impression it is for the boys’ avian enjoyment. Really, I put it that low to cover a giant hole created by an arrow gone terribly astray.

Yes, this yard is home to flying projectiles and sailing basketballs and whirling baseballs. It hosts soccer games and bonfires and the occasional bocce tournament.

This yard has been rode hard and put up wet. It screams boy, and that is a difficult sound to drown out.

You can tell a bunch of boys live here. It’s not that we display the Jolly Roger or post Beware signs on the front gate. We don’t even have a rope swing coming off an upstairs window—though my boys have been drawing up plans for one. It’s all because of our yard.

I remember a conversation I had with a friend who has one child, a precious little boy who was then approaching toddlerhood.

Yes, she admitted, somewhat embarrassed, there is now a bald spot in the sod where we caught him digging. The hole is almost the size of a quarter! And I’ll tell you right now, that sentence moved me to tears, on so many levels. Could a hole really be only the size of a quarter? I’ve never seen one that small. And only one hole? How very curious. And sod—what is this thing of which you speak?

Of course, I’m painfully aware of what sod is, how I don’t have any, and how I’d really like some. I think all it would take is some lush greens to make me forget every one of my cares in this world.

Unfortunately, my husband has no interest in investing in something that will be gone (but not forgotten) in a matter of months. Have you seen, he’ll ask me, how our boys behave outside? Are you fully aware of their tunneling capabilities?

It’s true those boys can dig. It’s quite impressive, actually. Our boys are some of the most ardent digging machines I have ever seen. If you give them a shovel, they will seek out dirt and excavate before you can say Mike Mulligan.

For a while, when the boys were very little, the digging didn’t bother me. I would send them into the backyard, and if they asked for a shovel, I would generously oblige. My rules were simple: 1) everyone must be wearing closed-toed shoes, and 2) no one is to take out his frustration with shovel in hand. While I agree that a lizard’s tail does indeed grow back, I’d rather not find out if the same would be true of your brother’s finger.

Off they would go, my precious little boys, to spend hours shoveling and exploring across the yard. I would feel slightly bad on those evenings when my husband would arrive home from work after dark and be forced to navigate through a field of divot land mines.

This is a bad idea, he would say, rubbing his ankle while leaning against the kitchen wall. It’s dangerous. And our yard is going to look terrible.

It’s fine, I would say, and then tease him for being so uptight. What boy doesn’t like to dig? I’d ask, and then I’d remind my husband that he probably did the same thing when he was a boy.

The thing about the digging was, it bought me time—precious, much-needed time, with those boys outside and not in the house literally climbing up the walls. For each hole they dug in the yard, I got thirty minutes of blissful quiet inside.

But now a few years have passed. We are all older and I’m a little wiser. And I want a nice lawn. I’m greedy that way. What’s so wrong, I’ll ask my husband, with wanting things to look beautiful out there? Nothing, he will tell me, except for that tiny detail of your having five boys who are in the habit of digging.

I understand this is not necessarily mutually exclusive; a person can give birth to a bunch of boys and still have a lovely yard. And I do make efforts to beautify what we have. Slowly, I’m building up a nice collection of potted plants and climbing vines and gorgeous hanging baskets around the house. I’ve even added some Tuscan-themed ironwork to the outside of the garage.

It’s just . . . I want more—more beauty, more elegance, and mostly, more grass.

Through the Stomach

My boys’ love language is food—they love food, and when I buy food they feel loved by me.

One Saturday morning I was headed out to the giant food warehouse club and invited my ten-year-old son, Elliott, to come along. It was like the hottest date he will ever go on in his life.

What are you getting? he asked. I explained that I had a list of things to buy, but that he could also pick out some things as well. I am throwing in the towel when it comes to all natural all the time. A few years ago I tried shopping only the perimeter of the grocery store. It didn’t go over too well.

Nothing says I love you like processed food.

When we arrived at the store, my son was almost moved to tears. The sight of a forty-eight-pack of hot dogs left him speechless. His jaw dropped as I heaved a family-size box of waffles into our cart. The beauty of it was almost more than he could bear.

We had a great time together that morning, and daily living was storybook perfect while the larders were full.

I have started to notice a trend—on the days when I’ve grocery shopped and the boys come home to a stocked pantry and fridge, there is something in the air. It’s an excitement, a glee, that I don’t see on any other occasion. Christmas comes close, but it’s hard to compete with a ten-pound bucket of chocolate milk mix.

You went shopping? they will ask, and when I nod my head yes, they run over and tackle me with joy. It’s not just about having food in the house—it’s about having lots and lots of food. So much that it practically spills out of the refrigerator when you open the door.

That, my friend, is living the good life.

At first I didn’t understand the concept. But at some point it just came to me—this is how my boys feel loved. The way to a man’s heart is indeed through his stomach. A mom with boys came up with that saying.

The downside to all of this is that the more food there is, the more my boys will eat. If I have purchased hot dogs and Hot Pockets and a sleeve of peanut butter crackers, my boys want it all. They eat those things, and then wonder aloud what’s for snack.

I do understand the concept of moderation, that idea of telling my boys no, you’ve had enough. But the minute I walk out of the kitchen, where I stand guard most of the afternoon, I return to find someone drifting back into my pantry for more.

They are seed-harvester ants, and while me versus one boy is totally manageable, me versus the pack of them is nearly impossible. Their hunger is a lightsaber, and I am no match for its power.

Back in the days of more reasonably sized boxes, before I knew that a hundred-pack of granola bars even existed, I would get average servings of food that we would slowly eat up.

We started out just like regular people. I would buy the food, keep it on the shelf, and then give it to the boys when they asked. This was just before they realized they had superpowers and could scale walls and climb on ceilings. Back then, I didn’t need to hide the food.

One day I caught my son Augie, six, getting into a box of snack cakes. I told him no, he needed to ask, and then moved the box higher. The next day, I caught another boy dangling off a pantry shelf, his fingers firmly planted into the highest rung. After the third incident, I realized this was a dangerous habit that was also terribly annoying. So I took drastic measures.

That night, after everyone had gone to bed, I shoved all the snacks into an empty box of bran flakes. Instead of putting the box high, I kept it down low, with all the other boring foods.

That worked for almost a week, before the boys either caught sight of me taking food out of the box or maybe just detected the glorious aroma of processed food seeping through the cardboard. Either way, the jig was up.

Slowly, as the years have progressed, we have left the world of mere mortal portions. We are now those people you see buying insane quantities that in theory will last me until the rapture but in reality will last until next week.

One day, I walked into the kitchen and told everyone to get out. They had eaten enough—snack time was over.

You can’t possibly need to eat anything else, I told them. You’re fine.

Out they scurried.

Ten minutes later, I walked back through to discover the lot of them starting up round two.

Why are you still eating? I asked in awe.

Because—someone munches—we’re still hungry.

Health Issues

The male species seems to have two settings for dealing with sickness: all or nothing. With my boys, it seems they are either in melodramatic agony or in denial. There is no in-between.

I shouldn’t admit this, but it doesn’t bother me when the boys are sick. I mean, it’s not that I want them to get sick or that I enjoy watching them suffer. But there is something about those minor, non-life-threatening illnesses that force them to slow down long enough for me to catch hold of them and give them a good, long squeeze. I love those moments.

When my boys are nursing a fever or battling a stomach bug, they will lie on the couch and watch movies and let me kiss their forehead and rub their feet. Even my husband, an independent sort who is rarely sick, will tolerate my bringing his favorite drink and some chicken soup to him in bed.

Another positive aspect of the boys’ being sick is that illness is generally the lone force strong enough to sideline a jousting match or suspend athletic competition.

But this only works when my boys admit they are sick or when the illness is severe enough to slow them down. The rest of the time we are at odds, me telling the boys (and my husband) that they need to go lie down, them telling me that they are really—sniff, sniff—totally—cough, cough—fine—puke.

One winter my husband had spent several weeks hobbling along with a nasty cough. I asked him repeatedly to go see the doctor. He told me he was feeling better.

This went on too long, and finally Paul started feeling the effects. He came to me asking about medicine. I started to tell him about cough suppressants and decongestants, but before I could finish, he broke in.

Do we have any Halls? he asked. I’d better take one of those.

I explained that cough drops were generally not considered medication that you would take one of and that, seeing as he had been battling this cough for over two weeks, he might want to try