Bringing up boys - when they are nice...

Two brothers

I am watching my boys clean their teeth from my office window, (we have an L-shaped house so my office window looks across to the bathroom window) and they haven’t noticed me.

Bog Boy is on his step-up stool and The Boy is beside him; one dark and one fair. They are both neatly attired in their school uniform, smart light blue aertex and dark blue jumper. Neat dark grey trousers for the littlest and shorts (in the middle iof winter- no I don’t get boys either) for my eldest, The Boy. And they are just chatting to one another as they go about squeezing toothpaste on their brushes. I can’t hear a word but its chat; nice chat. They seem so close to each other so at ease with being brothers. I can see Bog Boy laughing at something his elder has done and now he’s handing his toothpaste over to The Boy so he can squeeze it out onto Bog Boy’s brush for him.

I think to myself. “Please God, when I die let this be one of the moments in my life that pass before my eyes before I sleep.”

It is such a joyous image.

Two brothers, happy being together.

Actually I don’t quite know what has come over them this being so nice. Where are the shouts and screams of rage? What cunning plan have they got to ambush me with? Can it really be that today everyone has woken up happy? I guess so because the boys have even remembered to turn off the bathroom light.

Bog Boy has just shouted up from the Kitchen saying there are no more crumbles for the dogs, it takes me a few seconds to work out that they are feeding the dogs for me as well…

I had better find out quick what my darlings have been up to I have a feeling it won't be good…but I’m smiling!