Monday, November 05, 2007

Waffles and Spaghetti

Last fall, while we were at Glorieta, Life Way was hosting a marriage retreat. Desperate for some worship time, but needing anonymity, Honey and I sneaked into a few of their general sessions. We loved the worship, and the speakers were a couple that had written a book named something like "Men Are Like Waffles, Women Are Like Spaghetti". I haven't read the book, but the authors were great at communicating and easy to listen to. Their point was, of course, that men and women are different on almost every level. Not only do we see things from different perspectives and react to those things in completely different ways, but most of the time we don't even see the same thing when experiencing the exact same situation.

I've known about this phenomenon for many years, and it really came as no surprise to me. The surprise came about 4 years ago when we were getting to know our newborn daughters. I thought, how hard can this be? Men and women may be completely different, but all babies are fundamentally the same. When you get down to it, can a newborn really develop likes and dislikes and quirks? Keep them warm, full, and dry and they're good to go. Lots of snuggling, and cuddling, and rocking, and patting and you can't go wrong. That's how it had been with Bubba. I had predicted that the only difference between Bubba and these two little female versions of Bubba was that with boys it didn' t matter which way you moved when using the diaper wipe, and with girls you absolutely, positively, no exceptions must wipe front to back. Other than that, we had a few years before we were dealing with true male vs. female. Mini-skirts, periods, and bras were in the very distant future.


Go ahead.

Have a good laugh at my expense.

I deserve it.

I was oh-so-wrong about that one. Nothing could have prepared us for the wave of estrogen that was about to flood our home. That still floods our home. Brooke and Mary TuTu have given new meaning to the word emotional. They are the poster girls for DQ - drama queen. And since school started in Sept, they are both experiencing their first crushes. And what a wild ride it's been. Lucky for us, the boys that they loooove don't seem to have the foggiest idea what is going on.




Except, every once in a while, if she plays her cards right, Mary TuTu gets her special boy to look her way. She says, "He's my friend in my heart". If her taste in boys will always be this good, we'll consider letting her date when she is 26 instead of 36!

4 comments:

Misty said...

it is SOOOO Amazing, the difference between boys and girls, from there very beginning. Like you, I believed differently until we were foster parents and I experienced it FIRST HAND!

Larissa said...

Oh my goodness, my chin just dropped to the floor when I saw that picture! That is so cute, but wow is all I can say! :)

javamamma said...

I haven't experienced this first hand with kids since I have 3 girls. And let's say I was relishing the fact I had three girls when they were toddler age - now that they are getting a little older (read: hormonal, even though they're still VERY young), I'm thinking boys wouldn't have been so bad. :)

Tracy said...

Thanks for your post here; you made me laugh. We are indeed different!

As to javamamma's comment above, I'm the exact reverse of you being the mom of 3 boys. When they were very young it was quite the challenge simply due to activity level (I always appreciated Dobson's encouragement to get them outside and let them move). Now that they're all teens, I see the mom's of daughters and thank God each day that I have these 3 sons (although I like the girls too but am just grateful that clothes and the emotional intensity aren't quite such a priority in our house).