Boys gone mild?

I don't understand why men and women don't get why the other sex moves in the world so differently.

Ah, but that's because I have a son, and if you're the mom of boys, you kinda see (if not immediately appreciate) the differences from the get-go.

Forget the blue outfits we dress boys in as babies. I got my first real taste of what was ahead when some 12 years ago I befriended Sara, whose daughter, Ashleigh, was about the same age as Trent. Shortly after I met her, she stopped by one day to visit and as we said our goodbyes on my front porch, I saw her face turn ashen as she watched Trent take his new Tonka truck and send it flying down the stairs, denting it as well as the brick steps on its way down. I gave a faint smile, shrugged an "Oh well, boys will be boys" shrug and was hopeful that the budding friendship could survive.

I saw it in his kindergarten class when the girls sat together, coloring within the lines while reciting their ABCs and counting by tens while Trent and his testosterone posse were in the corner pretending to be Mutant Ninja Turtles and doing battle with each other.

No mother of a daughter can understand Life With Boys. I say boys because, although Trent's an only child, one boy is equal to at least three kids. They travel in packs, and at anytime a friendly mind-numbing video game gathering can errupt spontaneously into a wrestling match or Three Stooges act. They don't snack; they descend on the kitchen like locusts. They don't walk, they whirlygig throughout the house, which, by the way, always reeks of something that's part dirty socks, part gym locker room, part burnt pizza crust. While Sara's house was filled with sparkly pink things and lots of ponies, mine was a wasteland of Lego pieces — including the people whose heads, arms and legs were violently ripped off — and littered with Pokemon, Magic and MLB Showdown cards and shredded candy wrappers.

Sara and I often took the kids on trips together to museums, aquariums and zoos. On the way home, Ashleigh would talk about the baby animals and the stuffed baby animals in the gift shops, while Trent remembered anything slimy, gross, half-eaten or dead.

At some point, it occured to me that mothering one daughter is not even parenting. It's like having no children at all!

But, of course, that was some years ago. Now Ashleigh and Trent are 14, and my how things have changed. Oh, there are still pink sparkly things at Sara's house — Ashleigh's makeup and midriff-baring spaghetti-strap tank tops — but there's something new, too. Drama. There are tears, door-slammings and "I hate you's" at any given moment. " It is Girl Gone Wild. "I'm the one in perimenopause," Sara yells at her, trying desperately to maintain some balance. "I'll have the hormonal outbursts around here!"

And at Kat's house? There's still the occasional wrestling match and it's still stinky. But Trent is becoming a man, meaning communication is often down to a few mumbled, pained words. It's still littered, too, but now with Thrasher, Guitar Player and Surfer magazines, muddy cleats and athletic socks so dirty they're petrified. Drama? Not unless I'm the one losing it. In other words, Boy Gone Mild.

And every once and a while, he throws his lanky body on my bed and, patting it with his hand, says to me, "Come sit and talk to me."

Talk? I am so worried about him.

"Aren't you supposed to be all pissed off at me and generally trying to separate?" I ask him, suspiciously.

"Oh, Mom. That's such a stereotype."

I'm not positive but I'll thinking that my Zenlike resignation and patience (aided by some extensive red-wine drinking) during the Tonka-throwing, Ninja Turtle phases are somehow responsible for that kind of talk. Give a boy space to be a boy, and he'll become a man.

And I am learning to not only accept, but embrace the boy that remains in the man. There's certainly something pink and sparkly somewhere in me.

So, are you in the tearful, door-slamming house or are you living in the mumbling stinky house?

And I'm so sure I never gave my mother that kind of drama. Did you?