Archive: Boys Will Be Boys

June 28, 2006

Boys will be boys

I am always amazed at the ingrained differences between boys and girls. There is a book written by John Eldridge titled "Wild at Heart". One of the main themes of the book is how God designed men to be wild at heart, to always be seeking adventure, to have this restless side that must have an exciting purpose. So, that has become Paul's excuse for anything he or any boy does that makes me sigh and roll my eyes. He shrugs his shoulders like a little boy and says, "Honey, I can't help it. I'm wild at heart." When we were in Morocco a few years ago standing by the ocean, and Paul got down on the closest rocks by the biggest crashing waves, and ended up having to hang his socks out of a taxi window to dry them out, it was wild at heart. When we were playing with our friends kids a couple of years ago, and were sledding in my parents very cool yard, and Jeremy (our friend's kid, about 9 at the time) decided to walk on the creek by my parents' house that had frozen over, I am frozen with visions of rushing to the emergency room with Jeremy's severed limb on ice. Paul says, "He can't help it. He's wild at heart." That same day, when Paul and Jeremy climed the steepest hill next to my parents' property to sled down it.....without sleds.....and Paul got his pants ripped on rusty barbed wire that was hidden beneath the snow....well, you get the next line.

So, a couple of days ago, I get an email from Paul's older sister, Carey. She has two kids, one of them being 13-year-old Lincoln. He told her to ask Uncle Paul if he had any cool ideas of things to do with old fashioned firecrackers. Carey said he had already rigged up a wire from the shed in their backyard to the house, greased it with cooking oil, tied firecrackers on a toy helicoptor, lit it, and let the explosive helicoptor rip down to the house. But he needed new ideas. When I read the email to Paul, he was impressed with his nephew's ingenuity. I asked if he had any other ideas, and Paul said, "I don't know. Just blow crap up." I emailed this to Carey, while complimenting Lincoln's well-thought stunt. She replied, saying that the greased cord was her idea to keep the fire off their lawn. Lincoln's original idea was to "blow up the helicoptor while throwing it". I still laugh when I type this sentence. I read that to Paul, and he cracked up, saying that was totally something he would do. That, and bottle rocket wars. And those little tanks that you light the rear of, and have them blow up on each other. Wild at heart, for sure. I don't know exactly what the charge is out of petty pyromania for boys, but I'm beginning to believe that the 4th of July was created by a man, for men, just for the opportunity to legally blow crap up. And whatever states that it is not legal to do so, MUST have a woman making the decisions.
But they can't help it. They're wild at heart.