Life with Sons

I grew up surrounded in my father’s family by young male cousins. I was not only the youngest but the only girl. It gave me a rather skewered impression of males. For a long time I refused to believe we shared a common species. At adolescence, my early impressions didn’t necessarily change much but by early adulthood I was willing to concede some males bore the resemblance of humanity. The real evolution in my thinking didn’t occur until I had sons of my own.

I was quite relieved when I delivered the Last Amazon and discovered I had the daughter rather than the son the ultrasound had suggested. Frankly, I wasn’t sure I could effectively parent a son. Today, I am blessed with two wonderful sons and I have learned to see the world through their unique perspective, but every once in a while things happen which still astound me. Going hand in glove with rising sons has been the opportunity for learning skills that I might never other wised acquired.

Take plumbing. I started out as a parent knowing absolutely nothing about plumbing, but through the years with my sons, I have learned to make best friends with my toilet bowl plunger and I now own my snake - it just seemed necessary. There is something about a hole which holds an enormous grip on the minds of young males. See a hole and they have an unique desire to fill it up. For years, my toilet has been on the receiving end of their attention.

I now have the Cadillac of toilet seats on my toilet. My oldest son has managed to break numerous inferior models. Besides the teak toilet seat was the only toilet seat that came with metal fasteners rather than plastic ones. For some strange reason my son has a rather alarming tendency to make the plastic ones break. The Caddy has managed to last the last six months without any breakage and is showing no obvious signs of wear, so it seems to have been worth every outrageous dollar I spent on it.

Last night my beloved son broke the handle right off the toilet tank. I have never learned how to repair a handle. No doubt my grandfather neglected to school me in the inner workings of toilet tanks and handles thinking I would always have a husband to manage these things for me or he, like me, just assumed I would never have sons.

I took a good look at the inner workings of my toilet tank and think with a few parts I should be able to repair it. This morning my beloved son and I will be making the trek to Canadian Tire to buy the appropriate parts. I suppose I could call my landlord to fix it.

Allegedly that is one of the supposed perks of renting rather than owning but it just seems to me that I would like a fully functioning toilet before next April. What I can’t decide is if I should buy two handles or just one. Of course, I also need to purchase a new plunger. During the drama in the bathroom last night the boys took to playing Highlanders and somehow managed to break the wooden handle off my plunger.