Socks Socks Everywhere

Here,
there,

everywhere...

and not a clean pair to wear!
...and my son wonders why he never has any clean socks in his drawer!

We Aim to Please. You Aim Too, Please

Boys. Aren't they wonderful? I really do think they are. But there are some things you have to remember during your daily life with them.

Like, don't just sit down on the toilet seat in a carefree, light-hearted way. The way you always have done...before having sons. And...keep in mind that being barefoot in the house takes on a whole new risk factor. Particularly in the bathroom.

I get it. I mean, aiming is an issue that we females have never really had to deal with. But, how long does it take to learn how to aim? Apparently, from my firsthand experience as a mother to two sons, it can take years!

So, let's run through the complicated procedure just one more time:

1. raise the toilet seat
2. grab ahold of your equipment and aim for the center of the water
3. do whatever it takes not to drip
4. put the toilet seat back down

If any one of these steps is skipped, performed out of order, or altered in any way, disaster will ensue. Along comes Mamma who immediately either sits on or walks through your puddles. And then Mamma is not happy.

And let me just say . . . it's better for everyone involved if Mamma is happy.

Boys, A Survival Guide

So, I'm looking for a book with the above title. Can anyone help me out here? Or maybe I just need an encouraging word or two...from other mothers of past or present 12-year-old boys...

My older son is a good kid. Rather intense, a bit impulsive verbally, often annoying and rude at home, but everyone loves him. He's got a million friends, wins over any adult he sets his mind to winning over, his teachers always say he's a positive presence in the classroom.

He's always been very cautious physically, not the type of kid who would put himself in any kind of danger or take unnecessary risks. Until recently...

So, maybe it's the 12-year-old hormone surge? I should have suspected something when he started doing "free-running" with his buddies after school every day. If you don't know, free-running is a sport involving jumping onto, over and around various elements in the urban landscape. You know, benches, low walls, stairways, cars (!), etc.

Yesterday he ended up in the emergency room after slamming an apartment building front door so hard that the whole plate-glass window broke. No serious harm was done (except to the window!) and no stitches were needed. Nobody died and nobody got too angry at anybody else.

I'm just wondering how long it's going to take him to grow out of this phase. Hopefully before he gets a driving license!

My Secret Admirer

So, I wake up the other morning, get ready to go about my day, and grab my cellphone as I go out the door. Oh, look! I have a message! That's always nice, let's see who it's from...

Message: Ciao

Just Ciao? From a phone number I don't recognize? Sent at 12:10 a.m.? Okay, must be someone who got the wrong number, but for curiosity's sake, I respond...

Me: Ciao, but who are you?

Immediately, I get the following message...

Person X: I am your secret admirer!!! So, I can't tell you who I am!!!

What? What's going on here? I don't really want to have a secret admirer, thank you very much. This must be a friend playing a joke on me. So I respond...

Me: Tell me who you are or don't write anymore.

My Secret Admirer: Well, I can tell you that my name is domenico, but you don't know me, and I'm a good friend of mauro p.

Me: Who is mauro p?

My S.A.: Mauro papagna (names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent!), don't you know him??

Me: The 12-year-old boy?

My S.A.: Yes, him!!

Me: And are you 12, too?

My S.A.: No, how old are you?

Me: Who do you think you are writing to?

My S.A.: To Sara, but anyway, how old are you?

Me: 47 and I'm Danny's mother.

Let us pause here for a moment to imagine the shock and subsequent panic that this poor little boy must have felt upon realising that he is trying to flirt with an old lady, and the mother of a friend of a friend, worse yet!

My horrified S.A.: And I thought that you were a pretty girl, from what mauro told me. That bum played a joke on me, just wait till I get ahold of him!! Please forgive me, I didn't mean to bother you, forget everything, pretend it never happened. See you later!!!

Me: Don't worry...no harm done. But tell Mauro not to give my phone number out to anyone else!

Just plain Domenico: Of course, I will right away. ciao

And so we ended up where we began, with a "ciao." And no secret admirer for me! LOL!

On Being 12

Sometimes, when you are 12, those long, hot summer days seem to stretch on interminably. You and your friend have played basketball, soccer and swum in the neighbor's pool for countless hours. You watched a little TV, but there was nothing good on, so the two of you decide to just sit around out in the yard.


As with little kids, it's those overly quiet moments that a mother needs to worry about...


Out of sheer boredom, my son decided it would be a good idea to stick his foot down into the little hole we had drilled in the yard to search for drinking water in the underlying ground water. As you can see, it's really a little hole. Compare the size of the kid's shoe with the size of the hole and maybe you know what's coming next in this story...

F., my son's friend came running into the house, "Sara, Sara, Danny's foot is stuck in the waterhole!" Yes, he got his foot into the hole, up to his knee, but then could not get it back out.

We spent the next half hour and more trying every possible technique I could think of to get his foot out. We tried to pull him straight up and out, but he said it hurt. I lay face down in the dirt and stuck my whole arm into the hole to try to pull his shoe off, but it was on too tight. I tried to untie his shoe so he could slip his foot out, but, besides the fact that he had made double knots in his laces, there was just not enough room for me to move my hand around.

The next stage involved tools...
I thought maybe I could cut the shoelaces, but there was just not enough room to manouver down in that hole and I was afraid I might cut my son. I spent a lot of time and energy trying to widen the sides of the hole, but as anyone who knows Apulia can tell you, we have a very rocky terrain here. I was able to move a tiny bit of dirt and a few little pebbles, but not much more.

In the end, the combination of my digging and the help of Danny's friend, F., who is a very big and strong 12-year-old, did the trick. We tried our original "pulling him straight up and out while he pushed with his other leg" technique....and succeeded!

Never a dull moment around here, I'm telling you...

Italian American Boys

People call my sons "American boys" but just as a joke. They are so completely Italian. It has taken me a long time to come to peace with that. Or better, to come to relative peace with that, because it still makes me somehow sad that my sons will not have so many of my American childhood experiences.

But, one of the important lessons I have learned in being a mother is that my children are not little versions of me. They have their own personalities, interests, points of view...and language and cultural experiences as a result of being "Italian boys."