Living with boys is essentially, living with doubt. “Are you sure? Really? Why?” Everything comes with a question: every request, every remark, every opinion.

“Darling, can you pass me the lettuce from the fridge, please?”

“Lettuce?”

“Yes. Lettuce. Please.”

“Why do you want lettuce?”

“To make a salad.”

“Are you sure you want to make a salad?”

Men doubt and question everything that women do. And we women, naturally, retaliate. We retaliate with our biggest weapon: we become mean. And then we blame the men.

“Hon, can you pass me that apple from the tree?”

“Why?”

“I want to eat it.”

“Are you sure you should be eating it?”

Scrunch!

“Yup, pretty sure Adam baby, pretty sure.”

“Why did you eat that?!”

“It’s your fault! Why did you pass it to me?”

Boys’ doubting and constant questioning would have been half a problem if they could at least take care of themselves on their own. Or if they made sense.

On a recent trip to Berlin to celebrate our twentieth wedding anniversary, my husband, Big Boy No. 1 and I, encountered very sunny weather and it wasn’t long before my big boy’s eyes started tearing and bothering him through his glasses.

Over breakfast I asked him why he didn’t bring his prescription sunglasses with him. His answer was that he didn’t think it would be so sunny.

“In July?” I asked.

“Well yes, I didn’t expect it to be so sunny in Berlin in July.”

“But why didn’t you bring them anyway? Why didn’t you think you would need them in July?” I persisted.

“Because it’s not the sun that bothers me. I don’t normally need them. It’s the sun that reflects off all these metallic surfaces that kills me, the kind of Northern European sun.”

“Like the sun in Berlin in July?”

We were getting annoyed with each other by then, him with me making fun of him and me with his inability to plan and pack properly. After a few minutes, my anger gave way to empathy.

“Here,” I said passing him my sunglasses across the table, “try these on for a while. See if they help.”

He took them, examined the lenses and promptly took out his lens wipe, cleaned them and gave them back to me.

“Here, they should be more pleasant to wear now.”

And that is why we have been married for twenty years and will probably stay married for the next twenty. I thanked him and thanked God for creating boys with such a short attention span and no rancour. So what’s a few questions here and there?