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...

That doesn't surprise me.

We had three boys and two girls, I fostered and cared for other children. The girls were constructive, the boys destructive. Girls would build something with lego, bricks - anything - boys would knock them down.

I've seen the same thing on the beach when girls build sandcastles and boys jump on them.

It can't all be nurture!

Our own boys wore me out, racing about everywhere making a noise with anything they could find while the girls were gentle and quiet

Mary

I dunno about 'gentle and quiet,' but....it wasn't my DAUGHTERS who got tickets for firing a weapon within city limits----because of the potato gun they aimed at the neighbor's cat. It wasn't my daughters who decided to play 'camp out' and set fire to the neighbor's back yard. (different neighbor.) It wasn't my daughters who....never mind. I'm astounded that they managed to grow up without landing in jail.

I invoked the "mother's curse' on them so often that now they are afraid to get married.

At least, that's the excuse they use.

(grump.)

grow up without landing in jail.

Well, in all fairness it wasn't my little brother who decided to turn the (only) bathroom into King Tut's tomb, complete with "mummy dust" (talcum powder)! Nor did he nearly set the house on fire doing dumb things with candles while trying to create a spooky atmosphere (just like on Dark Shadows). :-)

Clearly an imagination is a dangerous thing. . .

Erin

No! Not really?

Yes We always felt that we were bringing up juvenile delinquents. I shocked on of the boys when he was a teenager by telling him that he'd end up in jail if he didn't behave better, I'd make sure of it. He was shocked into changing his attitude.

Now he has teenage sons - serves him right :-)

What's the mother's curse?

Mary

Oh, now that I like!

Yes., Two of our boys (13 and 15 at the time) found an empty car petrol tank, the younger one held it between his legs while the other stuffed the spout with dry leaves and put a match to them.

Weeks in the burns unit, skin grafts - but oh how life-changing! They both are obsessive about fire safety now.

Mary

Yep. You take some compressed air, a length of PVC pipe (the plastic water/sewer pipe stuff) and a potato. You do something arcane with them. You try to shoot the potato as far as you can with it. You are absolutely guaranteed to miss the cat.

And upset the neighbors. It makes a very. big. bang.

You were just celebrating the success of it yourself, Mary. :-)

OK, everybody, all together: stand, put your hands in the proper position (You have a choice; either with the index finger pointed at the subject, or both hands thrown in air...) and begin:

"When you grow up I hope you have children JUST LIKE YOU!!!. "

There. Doesn't that make you feel better? (grin)

Mary?

You win.

That's almost worthy of a Darwin award. I'm very grateful that they didn't meet all the requirements for one!

No idea what it is!

Mary

...

But that's not, strictly speaking, FIRING a weapon - there's no fired involved. It's like using a longbow - you shoot it. If The Authorities said 'firing' they should have been challenged :-)

...

Ah, I see :-)

Hmmm ...

A grand-daughter has just (yesterday) moved in with us. She's so much like her mother at 20 - but not as argumentative. Her mother (our No 1 child) once said to us that she hoped she could bring up her children just as we'd brought up her and her siblings.

Now that really DID make me feel better, after all the rows we'd had :-)

Mind you, she didn't - or rather her husband didn't share her values :-(

Mary

Seems my post got edited out by a computer somewhere, I suspect because of one particular word below:

Hi Erin,

lol! - maybe I'm a male exception here, that never occurred to me!

I suspect that behavior has something to do with the etymology of the word 'e j a c u l a t e' (from my computer dictionary):

[1570-80; < L ejaculatus, ptp. of ejaculari to shoot out = e- E -+ ? ? jacu-lari to hurl a javelin, hurl, der. of jaculum javelin (der. of ? ? jacere to throw)]

David ?

The Darwin Awards are given to those who improve the gene pool by removing themselves from it accidentally. This can be by accidentally killing themselves while doing something stupid, or merely rendering themselves unable to reproduce also by doing something stupid. These are all taken from news reports. Some are real jawdroppers.

There's complete listing of the "winners", with details, and other goodies over at

The Other Kim kimagreenfieldatyahoodotcom

The following quote is from the Darwin Awards web page, which is here:

Darwin Awards salute the improvement ofthe human genome by honoring those whoaccidentally remove themselves from it...The thing is, I don't know a single teenage boy who has not, at one time or another, avoided recieving one of these by the narrowist of margins. It makes me rather nervous about the future of the human race. ;-)

Well, that's the problem with allowing your children to get married; they choose people who are different from them.

Of course, in my case, it's not 'allow..." I'm beginning to beg and plead.

I've even promised sweaters and a lifetime supply of hand-knitted baby things (to get the thread on topic...) I'm thinking, though, that this offer might not be all that big an inducement. :)

LOL! Yeah, that might have something to do with it. It's as good an explanation as any!

Erin

Mary,

Spud guns used compressed air much like a air pistol. Here is a link to wikipedia that you may want to check out.

husband and his brothers had one when they were younger...and I believe the county sherriff was called out to the house just to give them a polite "Please stop doing that" talk. *LOL* Christy

ah - I see, thanks. Yes, No 3 son was practically sitting on a bomb :-)

I'll look at that later, thanks again,

Mary

I didn't allow it, I had no say in it :-)

Not these days ...

Mary

I don't like Wiki ...

But I do know what a spud gun is, we always had them during the war.

We never shot at people, we were so innocent ...

Mary

I sent a mail to a friend about my husband's prostatectomy and the consequences. It was stopped because 'the contents were offensive'. Apparently it was the word 'Cialis' (prescribed by our family doctor) which might have offended my friend.

It didn't.

Mary