brotherly love

Boys are strange beings.

I think I find them strange because I am not one.

I struggle, sometimes, to understand the male brain. The way that rolling around on the floor for hours at a time with limbs flying in all directions is fun. Even when you've sustained an injury. Still fun.

They can be the best of friends, and the worst of enemies all in the same twenty minute period. (This, I think, is not exclusive to boys, but the intensity is quite breathtaking.)

My boys are most at home out in the wild. Preferably with lots of sticks. And mud. And water. They love the book "Where the Wild Things Are" because they see themselves in the characters.

They have a crazy interest in machines. Not just the usual helicopters, cars and planes but any machine. A favourite hobby is taking apart broken household appliances to tinker with. In keeping with my now public hoarding tendency, I have saved a busted kettle and dvd player for the boys to play with, and they have had lots of fun using their Dad's tools to take these apart. They are now eyeing up my hoover, which is on its last legs.

Although I don't always understand them, I love my boys. I love their energy, their imagination, even (sometimes) their roughness.

I see glimpses of good men in my sweet, slightly crazy boys.