Boys will be Boys and Sometimes they Break

Twelve days ago this little guy and I ended up at the pediatric urgent care center on one of our last Saturday afternoons in Florida. All hell had broken loose the evening before while I attempted to make dinner before hubby arrived home from work.

Little guy jumped off a low shelf in our playroom (or maybe he was pushed, there’s no reliable witnesses available and no one will admit to the crime). It was a habit my boys had developed over the weeks prior.

Climb up on a piece of furniture and jump off. Laugh. Repeat.

No amount of yelling, scolding or explaining the consequences of such behavior could get them to stop.

Until little one was hurt, crying in my arms. Unable to put weight on his right side. Screaming as I poked around at his chubby little foot.

We decided to wait it out overnight and when it was still bothering him in the morning, we took him in. But they didn’t see anything on the x-ray. “Likely just a bad sprain or strain, he should be feeling a lot better in a few days,” they said.

Except we got to a week later and he was still not putting weight fully on that foot. He was still crying “foot hurt!” every morning as we came downstairs.

So, to the pediatric orthopedist we went. And, sure enough, he’s been hobbling around on 3 broken metatarsals.

But the thing is, if you didn’t know something had happened, if you didn’t look really closely at his walk and new little gallop, you wouldn’t really know anything was wrong.

Because within an hour of the original incident, he was playing in the garage with his brother and sisters. He’s been swimming and riding his bike. Grandma and Grandpa even took them to the park while the movers were at the house and he climbed and slid and swung like any other day.

And this is what I think of when I hear the saying “boys will be boys.” It’s not that boys get a free pass on bad behavior. It’s not that boys have less self-control or compassion than their female counterparts.

“Boys will be boys” simply means that boys are going to be energetic and fearless. They’re going to be messy and wild. They’re going to act without thinking and they’re going to get hurt.

They’re going to think they’re Superman and try to fly. They’re going to dig in the dirt and create worm collections. And no matter how many times we warn them, they won’t learn until they actually break something.

My boys haven’t jumped off a single piece of furniture since that day. And little man is healing just fine (I just have to try to keep hard-soled shoes on his busy feet). But the past few weeks have certainly given me a crash course in raising little boys!