IT'S A BOY

I spent the first 18 years of my life in a house filled with testosterone. The word filled, however, is relative. It was my dad, my younger brother, my mother and me and we weren't the most athletic family on the block. My dad loved Broadway shows and movies. Our combined testosterone level was boosted only by the fact that my mom could throw a runner out at home from center field and once kicked a field goal – barefoot. Yes, she broke her toe. The doctor, when she explained to him how she had broken it, told her, “Suffer, you idiot!” My first daughter was born when I was 28 years old and that was the beginning of what was to become a hormonal heaven on earth (if that concept is even possible) for a very long time. When my daughter was 4, a baby sister came along so, now there were 3 females and me in the house. I was surrounded by girls and I loved every minute. As the girls began to grow, I was able to see things from a perspective I never could before. Oh, I had been young once and had grown as well and had gone through a lot of what they were going through but I was a boy and grew up in the 50's. There was a whole different value system that it took the 60's to remedy so that by the time my girls came along in the mid to late 70's, I was able to see them without the societal restraints of a couple of decades earlier. I didn't have to “not” teach them how to box because they were girls – I had the heavy bag in the garage and my oldest became proficient enough to break a guys nose once, when he wouldn't leave her alone. She even, while training years ago, got to spar with Leila Ali. My girls learned from me and I learned immeasurable amounts from them. Still, though, I was a guy and lived in a house full of girls. When the girls where pre to early teen, my ex and I made the informed and correct decision to go our separate ways. The girls went with her but, for as long as we all lived in the same vicinity, my house was still filled with girls every weekend. In the 90's I moved to Dallas and my ex took the girls to Orlando. I saw them from time to time and always cherished those extended stays when they visited from across the country and could spend an appreciable amount of time. I loved my “house full of girls”......even though now, it was sporadic at best. Then, I met a wonderful woman whom I dated, fell in love with and married in a relatively short amount of time - less than a year - which I always had to justify by saying, “Yeah well, the last time, I got married in a week....so....” She brought with her, two beautiful children........one of them a gorgeous little girl with big eyes and curly hair and the other a boy. I legally adopted my new wife's little angels and made them mine that week. “Uh-oh,” I thought, “What have I gotten myself into? What the hell am I gonna do with a boy? All I know is girls.” Girls, I reasoned, that I had taught to box and to play ball and do all the things society had told girls they didn't do. I figured, hell, I could just treat him the same way. With the all the love, respect and support that any person deserves when doing whatever it is they choose to do. Of course, the ploy worked and, as icing on the cake, I got to coach Little League, go to H.S. Football and LaCrosse games and, from time to time, as he got older, do “guy” stuff, like smoking cigars. Stuff that I would never subject my girls to (unless, of course, they wanted to) and I got to raise him with a sensitivity to the issues of all of the females around him, including the new one who joined us the following year when my wife got pregnant with my 4th daughter. My two oldest daughters were now married and pursuing what have become very successful lives thus far. My oldest daughter and her husband have chosen not to have children but my 2nd has 3......all girls. I like to tell people that “I have a mother, an e-wife, a current wife, 4 daughters and 3 granddaughters. There is NEVER a time when someone in my life isn't cranky!” My son has been on his own for the past 10 years or so and is now living close to us in South Florida where he is building a nice clientele as a cranial artiste (I believe we used to call them barbers) and is now a father to be himself. His fiance' called a few hours ago to tell us that they had been to the doctor and – it's a boy. The chain has been broken. I think that, between my son and I, the “Little Prince” will have, at least, a slight advantage as he navigates through the plethora of sisters, step-sisters, cousins and other female family folk when they pounce on him and smother him with all the love and devotion he will ever need........just before he steps outside to join his dad and his grandpa in a good cigar.