Alright then. Enough angst -- on to Weird Boy Stories.

I'd been considering writing on several other topics (as I mentioned in a previous post), but then my nephew, Marshall (not his real name) did something the other day which was both appalling and amusing (depending on your sense of humor). Marshall's misadventure got me thinking on the topic of how odd boys really are. I'm sure it's caused by cooties.

First, about Marshall, Gwen's second-born...he's fifteen and has always been a bit of an odd boy among odd boys. By which I mean that 'oddness' itself takes on new meaning when you're talking about Marhsall. When he was a little kid, we always used to say that he seemed to be in his own world most of the time, and it certainly seemed to be a strange little world. For example, Marshall would get "noony". What being "noony" meant was that he would run around saying "noony, noony, noony" and running into you with his forehead. Repeatedly.

Eventually we had to buy a tranquilizer gun.

There was also the time when he pooped in the floor of Nate's bedroom. He was four-ish...recently and unreliably potty-trained - still at that stage where the after-potty clean-up requires adult participation. I was babysitting him and he'd gone to the bathroom and been gone a long time. I went to check on him and found him in there standing in the vicinity of the toilet...

On a totally different subject, I once found my dog standing in the shower. It wasn't on, he was just standing there behind the curtain, looking mournful. But back to the nephew.

Anyway, he was just standing there in his underwear and when I asked what he was doing, he told me he'd pooped. Well, I didn't see any poop. There wasn't any TP or anything in the toilet either. I checked his underwear to see if he'd gone into my bathroom to poop in his underwear (which would not have surprised me), and didn't find anything there either, except some very minor evidence that the pooping had actually occurred. Somehow I doubted the kid had done the deed, cleaned himself up, and flushed without any help from me. As I'd mentioned, he was new to the whole process.

I asked him, "Ok, Marshall...where's the poop?"

His response: "I don't know."

So now I was on a poop hunt.

After I'd assured myself that it wasn't in the bathroom, I went into Nate's room, and there it was. I stood in the doorway and hoped that the irregularly shaped 'thing' in the middle of Nate's floor was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figure. I was holding out some hope still that angels or fairies had spirited away the runaway poop and I wouldn't have to deal with it. No such luck.

But Marshall's all grown now and as far as I know, his potty training issues are far behind him. That doesn't keep him out of trouble though.

Just the other day, he was on a bus, heading off to church camp. He and another kid got the bright idea to make a little sign that said 'Help Us' and hold it up for passing motorists to see.

After the THIRD call to 911, the police pulled the bus over to see who was kidnapping a busload of kids to sell into white slavery.

Marshall narrowly avoided being booked for Inciting Panic.

Marshall's brother Jackson (not his real name either), Gwen's third child, is almost as strange. He's eight now (I think -- it's hard to tell because he's recently taken up lying about his age). This kid will talk your arms off if you let him. That's not strange, but what is strange is that he went all the way through kindergarten without speaking a word. Not one. Not to his teacher, not to his fellow kindergarteners, not to the lunch lady, not nobody. His teacher called Gwen to ask if he COULD speak, and that was the first she'd heard of it. I assume when she asked him how school was going, he probably gave her the typical 'boy' response: 'fine', neglecting to mention the whole 'I'm pretending to be a mime' thing. He would do his work and all that, just never spoke. Fortunately, by first grade, he was over the silent thing. Or unfortunately - depends on your point of view.

I also recently heard that Jackson was keeping a dead bird hidden in his room. He didn't kill it or anything, just found it dead and brought it home. He was heart-broken when his mother made him get rid of it. See...boys think things like that are INTERESTING.

Cooties.

Nate himself still exhibits what I think of 'boy weirdness' from time to time, even though he's reached the ripe old age of seventeen. He still loves to lurk outside the bathroom door waiting to scare the bejesus out of whoever comes out the door. For more examples of his 'boy weirdness', please refer to my earlier posts.

PB is also gearing up to join the ranks of the Weird. He gave himself a haircut the other day with a 'shave your legs' razor. He was in the bathroom, on the toilet at the time. I guess he got bored. He is also at that 'adult participation in the clean-up' phase when it comes to potty training. When he called for Jadyn to come assist, it actually took her a moment to notice the patches of hair gone from his head...one in the front, one on the side...As she was spotting the razor on the floor, and the sprinkling of hair on his shoulders, he looked up at her and, pointing to the back of his head, matter-of-factly asked, "Am I bleeding?" No panic, he just wanted to know. And he was. He'd taken a little chunk of skin with the hair from the back of his head.

Fortunately she was able to shape up his hair and make him beautiful again. She could fix that, but there doesn't seem to be a cure for just being a boy. You just have to ride it out.