Growing Up Boy in a House Full of Estrogen

Let's take a look at the GFYO (who is actually the Giant Seven Year Old now, but frankly GSYO doesn't have the same emo-rock band name feel that I intended. Oh, I kid.).

Anyhoo, the GFYO has taken a few hits this summer, and I'm not just talking about the awesome wound to his knee that will undoubtedly result in a killer scar someday. Granted, he enjoyed his two weeks at the local YMCA camp and he has his own sports and schedules, but for the most part, his life this summer was lived as he usually lives it: dragged around in the cyclone of his sisters' lives and plans and increasingly wacky moods.

Poor, poor GFYO.

I feel his pain, because I get tossed and turned in that same storm, to a different degree and for different reasons, but still: I feel for that kid.

The GFYO, though, he does alright. He knows when to hunker down in the Legoland of his own making. It's a small room that we call the "playroom" and which I think he trashes on purpose -- mini army camps on missions all over the rug, leftover Gogurt wrappers smeared here and there -- just so no one will enter. At seven, he knows what ManTown is and he's building it.

He spends time on the trampoline engaged in the same epic battles he's been fighting since he was four. He plays both parts: villian/hero, goal scorer/goal tender, dark side/light. He's practicing something purely boy out there, something I peek at from the window upstairs because if he's spotted, he stops. He needs to carve out his boyness away from our prying, girly eyes.

He knows the words to most of the songs they love. He understands that girls get older and boys text them and though he's never seen it, he knows what "Pretty Little Liars" is and that Justin Bieber made a perfume. He's witnessed hissy fits and freak outs that must seem entirely absurd to him and he knows that it is never, ever okay to comment on the size of a girl's thighs. He has let them try to put his hair into a ponytail. He knows they worry about his "flow." He knows girls can fight -- as in WWF fight -- and though he takes his swings too, he gets there is a difference between him and them.

It's no wonder he's deeply in love with his dad right now and no surprise that he counts the minutes until The Kid comes home to toss the ball with him (better than me, I guess) or just be a dude with him (which I can't be). Poor GFYO is outnumbered so much of the time. Poor GFYO is constantly kissed and hugged by a mom who thinks he is quite possibly the cutest little dude that ever was. "Ahhh, mom," he says. "Is that enough, mom?" he says.

I can't answer that, because I doubt it ever will be, but I do know this: some of the best men were raised in houses of women. The GFYO might suffer for the next few years, but someday, when he stands to toast a sister, he'll get his upper hand: the GFYO will know ALL their secrets.

Atta boy, GFYO, atta boy.