The One With Skippy’s Little Crush

On Black Friday I took all the girlfriends plus Skippy to Borders for a little outing. Hannah looked at wedding books (yes, she and Casey got engaged on Wednesday...), Katie found Anti-Monopoly, Kim looked at cookbooks, Cam coveted City of Ashes, and Skippy... well, he had his heart set on Giada. Like father, like son.

The One Where She Faced the Dragon

I am at war. With my 12-year-old daughter. I tell her what to do. She agrees (often angrily, tearily or both), and then does what she wants instead. Maybe my boys were this hard to motivate, but I knew that for somewhere between 20 and 40 hours a week, they were going to be at school, where inspiration would be the job of the best teachers my tax money can buy. That didn’t always work out so well, either. But with homeschooling, it is my job 24/7. And about half the time, I am failing.

My own mom is a lot better at this. When she comes down for a visit, or when Cambria goes there, they turn out piles and piles of art and math and writing and social studies... but I seem to lack the Girl Mom gene. When I suggest such industry, I just get that look that says, “As if.”

Her education is not necessarily suffering... her standardized test scores remain very high. She is very talented and clever and witty. But she is happy to make me crazy for hours over one small writing assignment. I also don’t understand the tears. Clearly, I am making her cry. That I understand. But all I asked her to do is finish a science page.

Perhaps the key is to include an art assignment on each page. The dragon illustration was part of her English assignment... maybe I just need to figure out how to get her to illustrate her math?

The One Where My Boys Strike Back

Well, my last post was pretty hard on boys… at least one in particular. The fact is, I feel a little sorry for Cowboy. He used an unfortunate analogy and almost certainly regrets it. Don’t get me wrong… he should regret it. But I have to play devil’s advocate here and write one for the boys. As it happens, I usually take the boys’ side in everything. Maybe that is just an occupational hazard for a mother of six sons… not to mention the fact that I have so many other friends who happen to be boys/men… like all the missionaries who have lived in our home... and I think of them all as my boys. In fact, when I was called to be the teacher for the 16-18 year-old girls in my church for three years, I was a little shocked, and more than a little worried. I wasn’t sure I would be able to like them all that much. I had never had much use for girls. On the whole, they seemed much louder, meaner and more sophisticated (in a bad way) than boys.

To my happy surprise, I loved the girls. They were beautiful, unselfish and fun, and they have become some of my best friends. That was a nice thing to discover, especially as my own boys were reaching the age where they have begun to marry. My oldest son picked one of the best ones I have ever met, and married her. That is certainly an encouraging start, right? So, back to my boys… all of them, whether my sons or not. If the girls deserve a boy who is willing to climb to the top of the tree, what do my boys deserve? More than they are getting, in a lot of cases, I’m afraid. When they call to tell me their dating experiences, I am constantly dismayed by what girls put them through. It is bad enough that girls play mind games with each other, but as boys usually are more straightforward in their interactions, it is most unfair to play mind games with them. Many of them are not equipped for that sport, and the good ones don’t want to play.

Here is what my boys deserve:

1. A girl who is beautiful. But beautiful in the right way… a girl who is unfailingly modest in dress, speech and actions. One of the standards of my church is to dress modestly… something that most of the world thinks is rather strange. But my boys deserve nothing less. Whether you see her at the beach, at church, shopping, or just on Facebook, she should be modest. Let me be clear here… this is not because I don’t want the boys to think bad thoughts. My boys can master their thoughts. It is something much more important… it marks a commitment to covenants they have made. And no double standards either... my boys are modest themselves. When my daughter Cambria was about two, she was pointing out swimsuits that she thought were “pretty.” I told her they weren’t very modest, and I asked her if she knew what modest meant. She very smugly told me, “Yes. It means ugly.” We laughed about that for days, but I am here to tell you that it does not mean ugly. I am a big fan of beautiful, stylish modesty. It is really easy to say that most of the girls wear their skirts too short and their swimsuits too tiny, so you can’t judge a girl by that standard. But I know girls who are unfailingly modest. They stand out like a bright light from the girls who are not… and my boys deserve nothing less than that.

2. A girl who is honest. No ex-boyfriends that aren’t really ex. No saying things she doesn’t mean. No pretending to feel more or less than she really does. No treating my boys like a plaything. Honest.

3. A girl who is unselfish. She needs to care more about others than herself, because that is how my boys are. I have worried, in the affluent area where I live, that DK and I have spent the last twenty years raising sons who can support a family, while my neighbors have spent the same years raising daughters that my boys can never possibly afford to marry. My boys are not just finding a girl to marry; they are finding a mother for their children, and that is about a hundred times more important.

4. A girl who is kind. She must be kind to her friends, kind to her family, kind to children, and… kind to my boys.

5. A girl who is better than my boys. Or at least they think she is. She needs to be so amazing, that they behave better around her. They try harder, and reach bigger goals, because she makes them want to be better men. She safeguards their virtue along with her own. She reminds them of how great they are, encourages them, sets a good example, and yet still follows wise counsel. Every one of my boys deserves a girl who is better than they are.

So come on, girls. It’s time to step it up a little. Be more to get more. I told you the apple analogy. You can never be that rotten apple sitting on the ground waiting for any lazy boy to scoop you up and take a bite. You are better than that. My boys are better than that. You might wonder how you can compete in a world of girls who use tricks and sexy clothes to get their way. Don’t think for a single minute that my boys can’t tell the difference. Yes, there are boys that are looking for those girls. But I will tell you right now… not my boys.

The One With Lindsay and the Cowboy

So I met this cute girl named Lindsay. Friend of a friend. Being the immature person that I am, I find that many of my friends are younger, and in the dating years. Lindsay told me about her conversation with a boy today. He is 20, and will be leaving on a two-year church mission in a few months, and they had the following conversation (to the best of my recollection):

Lindsay: I am happy to go out on dates with you, but I have a feeling you are more into it than I am. (translation: I think of you as a friend)

Cowboy: Well, Lindsay, this is how it is for me: I am leaving on a mission soon (where there will be no more dating of girls), and basically I am just out to get what I can. I am trying to “fill up my canteen,” so to speak.

Wait a sec...did you really just say fill up your canteen???
I am still trying to wrap my brain around his choice of analogy... not to mention the intention behind it. There are a lot of canteens in the world, Lindsay. Fortunately you are smart and good enough to know that you don’t need to provide a watering hole for every random ridiculous cowboy out there.

This is one of my favorite quotes: “Girls are like apples...the best ones are at the top of the trees. The boys don’t want to reach for the good ones because they are afraid of falling and getting hurt. Instead, they just get the rotten apples that are on the ground that aren’t as good, but easy. So the apples at the top think there is something wrong with them, when, in reality, they are amazing. They just have to wait for the right boy to come along, the one who’s brave enough to climb all the way to the top of the tree...”

Lindsay is definitely at the top of the tree. When one of those boys cares enough to climb up, then he is worth looking at. All the better if he leaves his canteen on the ground so that he can climb better.