Girl Time

There are no other girls for a radius of five miles. I am the only one. Unless you count the chickens.

This overwhelming testosterone level would not be tolerable, even for a tomboy like me, without a few concessions to my gender. First of all, everyone is a gentleman. That’s not a compliment to them as much as it is a rule:

“You will be a gentleman,” Monsieur frequently warns a boy, “or I will know the reason why not.”

It’s very difficult to remember to be a gentleman when you are only five, I told Monsieur.

“It is more difficult to make a gentleman out of a man of fifty years, if he has never been required to be a gentleman at the age of five,” he replied.

Yet, with all of his attempts to corral them, they still have a hard time not banging doors, not running in the house, and not coming downstairs without a full complement of shirt, underwear, and pants.

They do close the back door now, and they do close the toilet completely after each use. I was not the one who trained them to do that.

One morning Middlest Boy let the cat in, fed him, and then went upstairs to pee. He found a raccoon drinking from the toilet, and screamed for his daddy.

Monsieur took a look at the raccoon, then told me to keep the kids in the downstairs bedroom until he said it was safe to come out. He then took a cloth bag and a mop, got the raccoon into the bag, and took it outside to put it into a dog crate. “It’s safe now,” he called, coming into the living room.

The boys filed out slowly. “Where’s the raccoon?” Middlest Boy asked. Bigglest Boy went up to his room to hide from the wildlife.

“He is in the dog cage,” Monsieur replied. The boys went out to observe the prisoner.

“What are you going to do with it?” I asked.

“I will call Animal Control,” he replied.

From that day forward, all of the boys keep the toilet seat closed. All doors are closed at all times. Middlest Boy checks the locks, too, and makes sure that we are always sealed in tightly.

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Still, even though they are apprentice gentlemen, they are still boys. Sometimes, I need a break from all this boyness. Last weekend I went to my friend K’s house, and spent all of Sunday watching TV and talking about boys. We did our hair and nails, and we watched girly shows on cable. She watched some of her weekend soaps.

It was good, especially since Monsieur does not have cable TV:

“I should pay over $700 a year to watch these insufferable cretins and their insipid entertainment? I think not – for that amount of money, do you realize what an incredible library of videos I could accumulate?”

“But Discovery, National Geographic, the History Channel?”

“I have much of that here,” he said, opening the locked video bookcase and taking out titles. “Here are hours of “Biography”, of National Geographic including the kids’ specials narrated by Dudley Moore, here is classic Jacques Cousteau from the 1970s, here is the Apollo space program almost in its entirety....”

So K and I watched cable for hours. We ordered pizza. We did a few quizzes in the women’s magazines. I hadn’t done a Cosmo quiz in years.

Apparently I’m adventurous, shy, studious, intense, laid-back, and a “Zen mom.” Go figure.

Also, I’m average for getting sex, if I were a married mom. I get sex from Monsieur about once a month, and apparently that’s about average for couples who are married and have more than one small child in the house. Hmmpf. Well. I’ve never enjoyed being “average”, I guess. Maybe I’ll stop complaining about it.

Talking about sex brought up favorite sexual positions, some of which I actually wrote down:

• On my side: I keep my top leg bent, he straddles my bottom leg and holds my top leg on his shoulder. I’ve done this one. De-e-e-p penetration.
• The Booty Grip: From behind, he should be inside me and my legs should be straight. Once he’s in, I have to close my legs and cross my ankles. “He has to stay close or he pops out!” K says. Sounds intense.
• The square dance: I sit on him, with him inside and my hands and knees on either side of him. Then, I should move my body in four directions: forward, backward, left, right. “You’ll feel every inch on every spot inside of you,” K assured me.
• Using his thigh: I’m on top but turned to one side, holding onto his bent knee. I can rub back and forth on his inner thigh as I go. I’ve done this too. Very good.

By the time the Tony’s were on I just wanted to race home and jump on Monsieur, but I watched them anyway.

Still, it was good to just hang out and be girly, and let their daddy take care of the kids for 30 hours.