Oh Boys!

I'll admit.

There have been times when my kids do something so weird or so bad or so gross that I just stand there...shocked.

Words fail me.

The only sensible response seems to be...leave the room, walk out the front door, get in the car and drive away.

A friend of mine, who has four boys, was talking to me about running. She said, "I love running because some days while I'm running, I pretend I'm running away from home."

Women who aren't mothers yet, or even mothers of only a few children might read something like that and think, "What an awful thing to say."

You can judge her....or you can admit you don't have four boys, so maybe you have no idea what it takes every day to keep them from setting your house on fire, to keep their pee-pee in the toilet, and their hands off their wee-wee. There are days I have wondered if most people have any idea how many spankings a boy needs to keep him alive, or out of juvie.

Friday I had one of those moments where I wanted to run away.

I was making lunch.

Anson says, "I'm going to eat my lunch outside."

Whatever...that's fine. I don't care.

And then, as he's on his way out, he mentions...

"You do know - don't you - that we eat ants when we are outside?"

Maybe I misunderstood. This is Anson, not Hayden. Surely, I just misunderstood him.

"What?"

"We eat ants."

The other two brothers chimed right in..

"Yep. We do. We like them."

Dear Lord.

"What? Why?"

Really...my head was spinning and I felt dizzy, but these boys were totally calm, and seemed to think eating ants isn't weird at all. Ashton didn't even stop eating his soup to be a part of this conversation.

Hayden said....

"We just eat the back of them...that black part...it has a lot of protein. Tyler eats them with us."

Stupid Bear Grylls.

Sorry Shannan. I'm sorry your son eats ants at my house.

I made sure to tell the boys that pretty soon, if they keep doing weird things like this, no one will let their kids be friends with them, and I might go live at Target.

I could not wait for Aaron to get home so I could tell them what happened.

He walked in the door and I said, "You will never believe what your sons have been doing."

I told him.

I waited...

I was very excited to hear him get onto the boys and tell them not to eat ants.

Tag teaming parenting is fun.

I wish we had matching costumes and masks.

I could practically hear Aaron telling them that eating ants is ridiculous, unnecessary and wrong.

Instead of all that great stuff he could have said, Aaron says..."I want to see."

"What?"

That was so NOT how I was expecting the dad talk to go.

Then Aaron went outside and watched the boys eat ants.

I'm telling ya...

It's a miracle a mother with four boys and a husband ever runs back home.