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Slices of Life: Cherishing thumps in the attic
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Loud thumping resonates from upstairs and shakes the house. Repeatedly. It sounds like bodies hitting walls and furniture being thrown about, which is probably pretty accurate. I pause and wonder if - or when - I should go up. Then I take my next turn at Trivia Crack. The thumping continues.

Boys. They are messy and rough. They push and pull and wrestle in the living room. They break windows. When you bring them to the store, they find it difficult to look at items without also touching and moving and holding and throwing - especially if the item is a football. They make smashing and thumping noises in the attic.

I wasn't cut out to have boys. Not in the plural sense. I wanted a boy. One token male to give a brother to the girls I planned to have. Girls, as in plural. Those were my plans.

Isn't it funny how life turns out sometimes?

I got boys in the plural form. Three if you are counting. They turned my world kitty-wampus with toy cars in the toilet, escaped tree frogs in the bedroom, spray paint in the bathroom and thumping in the attic. They did all those things when they were little. And they were boys.

Now they have grown - for the most part. Two of them tower over me. Their voices are deep; their shoe sizes double digits. They no longer practice the behaviors of boyhood and are closer to - almost, nearly - men.

Save for the youngest. Our little caboose as my husband likes to call him. He's still a boy and was the cause, most recently, for the thumps in the attic.

With the others, I would have rushed up to stop their rambunctious behavior. To make sure no one got hurt or put an eye out. I might have even scolded them for being boisterous. For being boys.

Our last son has a different mom. I'm the same person, but I'm a different mom with him than with the others. I guess each of them had a unique mom who was all me. It's impossible to be the same from one day to the next. Life changes a person in increments.

Our youngest son changes us. He keeps us young and gives us gray hairs all at the same time. He's our last great crescendo - and what a symphony he is. He embodies life and embraces it with enthusiasm, joy and the occasional thump in the attic.

He's the child who, if he brings one friend home from school, figures he might as well make it five. And he does so with regularity. Since he is the last, I don't object because I know from his siblings that this stage, like all stages, is fleeting and it won't be long before the 12-year-olds playing upstairs will have car keys in their pockets and girls on the brain; my attic will soon be abandoned, boy-less and free from thumps.

So I'm not in a big rush to run up and scold them anymore. Most of the time nothing gets broken, and we've yet to put an eye out, thank goodness. Besides, how much damage can six 12-year-old boys cause? Never mind. Pretend I didn't ask that question.

For now, I stand in the kitchen, cherishing the thumps as well as the knowledge that our youngest son is a wonder, as they all are. But he is our last - our grand swan song of parenthood - and that is cause for reverence and gratitude for things as they are right now, today, at this very moment. Thumps and all. Especially that last really loud one.

On second thought, maybe I better go check on them.



- Jill Pertler's column appears every Thursday in the Times. She can be reached at pertmn@qwest.net.