I love living with boys really I do. Boys make you feel so important. They give meaning to your life. And the reason boys make you feel so important is because they are just so needy. You realize that the reason you were born and the reason you are living is actually to

1. a) give them birth,
2. b) cater to their every whim after you give them birth.

Sometimes you don’t even give birth to them but you still have to cater to their whims and needs.

Somehow, once a boy is with a woman, he loses all sense of self-reliance and self-sufficiency. They do fine when you’re not there but somehow, once you materialize, they turn into helpless beings, incapable of any action without your approval. Better yet, you do it!

When I first started living with my husband (I am going to get into so much trouble for this) he suddenly, after four years of living on his own, lost the cognitive skills necessary to operate a washing machine. Suddenly all these images and numbers became way too complicated for him to deal with.

“But I don’t know what they mean!”

“They mean the same thing they meant on your other washing machine, the one you were using before we lived together.”

“No they don’t.”

(Another great skill that boys have. More on that later.)

As for the fridge and the cooker, he started bumping into them because he had no idea what they were.

I blamed his mother of course, to whom I now owe a deep apology because, having had three of my own, I realize that the simple cue of remove your (replace with anything) usually needs repetition. Every. Single. Time.

It’s not that boys are dumb, quite the contrary, they are very intelligent human beings. It’s just that when you’re around, there’s no need for them to be. No need for them to do anything. I try to convince my boys that I would happily do their homework and revise for their tests myself but what would they do in the classroom when they have their exams and I’m not there?

They look at me with their puppy eyes saying nothing. They are waiting for me to answer. Of course! What was I thinking?!