What Is A Boy?

Maria has been interpreting at a hospital the last few days for a deaf couple who had a baby. She was even in the room during the entire C-section, and that is just so very cool. Anyway, she saw this posted on the door of the nursery in the maternity ward:

What is a Boy?

Between the innocence of babyhood and the

dignity of manhood, we find a delightful

creature of a boy.

Boys come in assorted sizes, weights and colors.

But all boys have the same creed: to enjoy

every second of every minute of every day and

to protest with noise (their only weapon) when

their last minute is finished and the adults

pack them off to bed at night.

Boys are found everywhere--

On top of, underneath, inside of, climbing on,

swinging from, running around, hiding under,

or jumping to.

Mothers love them, little girls hate them,

older sisters and brothers tolerate them,

adults ignore them, and heaven protects them.

A boy is Truth with dirt on its face,

Beauty with a cut on its finger,

Wisdom with bubble gum in its hair,

Hope of the future with a frog in its pocket.

When you are busy, a boy is an inconsiderate,

bothersome, intruding jungle of noise. When

you want him to make an impression, his brain

turns into jelly or else he becomes a jungle creature,

bound on destroying the world, and himself with it.

A boy is a composite--

He has the appetite of a horse, the digestion

of a sword-swallower, the imagination of Paul

Bunyan, the energy of a pocket-size atomic bomb,

the curiosity of a cat, the shyness of a violet,

the audacity of a steel trap, and the enthusiasm

of a fire cracker.

He likes ice cream, movies, saws, Christmas,

comic books, the boy across the street, woods,

water (in its natural habitat), large animals, trains,

Saturday mornings, and fire engines.

He is not much for Sunday school, company,

books without pictures, music lessons,

neckties, haircuts, girls, overcoats, adults, or bedtime.

Nobody else is so early to rise or so late to supper.

Nobody else gets so much fun out of trees and dogs.

Nobody else can cram into one pocket:

A rusty knife, a half-eaten apple, three feet of

string, two gumdrops, a slingshot,

a chunk of unknown substance, and a

genuine supersonic code ring with a secret compartment.

A boy is a magical creature--

You can lock him out of your workshop,

but you can't lock him out of your heart.

You can get him out of your study,

but you can't get him out of your mind.

Might as well give up--

He is your captor, your jailer, your boss, and your

master. He is a pint-sized, cat-chasing, bundle of noise.

But when you come home at night after dealing with

work and life and the stress of the day, he can

mend it all like new with three magic words,

"I LOVE YOU".