Where The Boys Live

My boys are eleven and thirteen and being their mom is like visiting another country. I have never been an adolescent male. I don’t speak the language and the customs are a mystery.

Lately we’ve been watching MASH on Netflix. Every afternoon after school, before launching into homework, chores, piano lessons, or basketball practice, we hang out with Hawkeye and Radar and Hotlips Hoolihan, which basically means we spend 50 minutes laughing. I woke them up this morning by standing in their room and pretending to play the bugle like Radar.  A risky move: they could’ve thrown their pillows at me. Instead, they laughed.

Laughing with the boys is my favorite thing. So is listening to them recount every single scene of The Winter Soldier, The Avengers, and The Force Awakens. So is listening to play-by-plays of NBA games. I don’t know who the characters are, I don’t know who the players or coaches are, and somehow the boys tolerate my ignorance.  They keep trying to bring me up to speed and I keep asking the dumbest questions (or so it would seem, based on their eye-rolls).

This morning, after playing my pretend bugle, I snuggled with one of the boys while he was still between sleeping and waking.  He reached toward my hand and at first I thought he was going to push me away because that’s what happens more and more lately.  I’m their mom, after all, and pushing me away is part of the process. But instead he laced his fingers with mine and fell asleep again. I held my breath and let myself soak it up . . . a precious fleeting moment in the country where he lives.