On Raising a Boy.....

As many of you know I really didn't know what I was going to do when we found out C was going to be a boy. My own family only consisted of girls, even the majority of the cousins my age were girls. I had no idea what to do with a boy. After he was born and I got settled into the motherhood thing, I feel like I adjusted pretty well to having a boy. There are still a few things I don't understand, like the constant machine gun noise that comes from his mouth, but I've learned to live with it. Looking back over the last 6 years I don't think I've done too many things that would've have scarred him....until now. I'm at a total loss of what to do, we have to make a Valentine Box for school tomorrow.

I asked J last week what we should do. The response I got was "I don't know" then it passed out of his mind as quickly as it had entered it. I on the other hand have been stewing about this box for a week because I knew it was ultimately going to be my responsibility. For a girl the pinker and frillier the better, for a boy I knew that wasn't going to cut it. How do you make a masculine valentine box? I'm a 50/50creative person, which means 50% of the time I can have some really good ideas. The other 50% of the time I'm completely clueless. Right now I'm in the other 50%. Sunday afternoon I took C to Wal-Mart to pick out his valentines and to get something to decorate the box with. I asked J to go with us, but he wanted to work outside so I faced picking out the decorations alone. I brought them home and showed them to J and he told me absolutely not was I going to do that for a boy's box. So I'm back to square one. J will be home late tonight so that leaves me to decorate the box alone, after he assured me on Sunday he would "make it happen" (as he was laughing at my idea). I love my boy more than anything in the world and I wouldn't trade him for anything, but this is one of those times I like remind his father he was the one that wanted a boy so bad - he can deal with the valentine box. But then the perfectionist side of me comes out. If I leave J and C to deal with the box C will be sent to school with a Wal-Mart sack which would reflect badly on his mother. I guess I'm stuck decorating a box that looks like a valentine box, but yet still remains masculine. Maybe it will ice again tonight????