nature vs. nurture – you decide

   

 

I would like to know if the event shown above is related to boy genetics or is this an event that has been taught to them and learned by them as they have grown up.  You may notice exactly what has occurred.  If it difficult to tell what these young lads have been up to so allow me to explain.  These young lads have brought each and every pillowed article that this family owns.  One of them or all together they have conspired and developed what must be one of the tallest couch construction sites of a pillow fort currently on record.  I’m not quite sure who a pillow fort would protect them from but they built it none the less.  Perhaps they have orchestrated this monstrosity simply because it seemed like a good idea at the time.  Please also bring into your decision the fact the new born girl has been brought into the picture for what reason?  Did she help build it or was she there as eye candy or was it built to impress her.  The tallest boy child is my nephew and the others share my gene pool including by dna.  I must admit.  These boy cubs have far exceeded their fathers ability to imagine and construct a fort made of pillows.

                

wrasslin’

My boys love to wrestle around.  When you go to watch a boxing match the Official Time Keeper always uses a traditional bell -“DING-DING”- to start and end a round of a match.  We can be out shopping and the intercom in the ceiling “ding-dings” to gather the employee’s attention.  My children freeze in their tracks.  They look like the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz stuck in unnatural positions.  Simultaneously their heads pivot on their shoulders to where they are all looking towards one another.  Each pair of eyes sparkle and shimmer with a glint of fiendish delight.  Their shoulder’s go up around their ears, their hands come up to the ready stance and a split second later three boys are stepping towards each other and forming a three ring wrasslin’ match.  They get about a second to pummel each other and I step in with a “hey hey” and a snap of my fingers.  They each back up a step at a time, hands still outstretched ready for any illegal punch, GRINNING like boys who just touched the top of the world. 

Top Secret Clearance

It surprises me that no one made me take a test to check to see if I was qualified to be a father.  What the fuck I had to take a test to flip burgers when I was fourteen.  I had to get a background check to drive a taxi, (I didn’t get that job by the way), and I had to take one to work with troubled teens.  I had to pass a pee test to get a job with heroin addicted prostitutes.  Not one questionnaire, multiple choice or fill in the dots test to bring home a cute, block-headed boy from the hospital 7 years ago.  I will admit one of the nurses was looking me up and down.  i figured well, this is it.  this is where they come and say “ahh…mr johnny boats we have some questions we would like to ask you before you leave the hospital with your son.”  It wasn’t.  It turns out she knew my mum and she wanted to know when she was coming in so they could consult over hair color products or some such shiite.  Someone at that time needed to pull me aside and explain how to change a diaper, make a bottle and explain that if your son has a bottle at two in the morning, and at 3 cries again, it isn’t necessary to feed him again.  Unless of course  your an amateur astrophysicist looking to watch a real life warm, milky, liquid hyperbola fountain in action.  That night I remember I was able to practice the floor cleaning skills I learned as a swabbie in the navy. And let it be known, for that job I had to get a top secret clearance.