The Monkey Barrel

Archive for September, 2009

We finally got the new platform bed up in john and luke’s room.   Check it!

My brother used to subscribe to a magazine when he was in the Boy Scouts called Boys Life. I really wish I’d read more than the funnies in it. Maybe it would have prepared me better for raising the hooligans I call sons. Perhaps there were articles on how to pack a perfect sand ball for hitting with a plastic bat in a way that didn’t fling particles into a younger siblings eyes. Or maybe there was a column that offered advice on how to organize all your toys into a crazed mess over every available floor space in your home that makes sense to naught but a little boys brain. I wonder if anyone wrote about how to keep a young mans fingers from straying into his nostrils absent mindedly or picking a wedgie publicly and REALLLLY diggin to get that bad boy out without a thought to the passerby near at hand. Was advice given on how to reassure your young sons that sharks live nowhere but aquariums and oceans and that taking a bath will not produce said creature from your drain hole? Were there instructional articles on how to amass every ounce of dirt in the surrounding county and pile it into hair, ear holes, fingernails, elbows, knees, toes, and butt cracks? A comic commentary on the never fail properties of a well timed fart gag anywhere, just about any time had to be in there somewhere I’m certain and boys are full of it and able to command it at will. I would have found great value in reading anything published having to do with distinguishing smells that emanate from beneath beds, inside closets, and hampers, and bathrooms that no matter how hard I clean, insist on smelling of old caked urine. I would also have been pleased to read in the culinary commentaries that every mother should purchase at least one metric ton of macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, and root beer per child to secure their sons survival. It would have saved many a slaved over meal. Were there write ups on volcanoes and the abject fascination with burning hot lava? Volcano week should seriously be considered on the Discovery and National Geographic Channels. My boys would be glued to the television. And speaking of glue, was anything written on the use of copious amounts of glue sticks and tape and staples to create original comics to peddle to your aunts and other bus riders and neighborhood school children? I should also own stock in those companies. There should’ve been something said about masked marauders hiding under beds and waiting stealthily for dripping wet parents wrapped in towels and ignorance, waiting so quietly to grab their ankles and send them shrieking to the ceiling sans towel and dignity to the soundtrack of giggling and hysterical laughter. But then, I suppose, had they included any of those things, I would never have wished for a son and gotten three that have made a daily, chaotic, insanely frustrating, crazy, manic, amazing, blessed, beautiful life