Always have a spare pair of pants

Here's something you need to know about boys: every boy knows everything about something.

My oldest son knows everything about oceans and all the stuff that lives in them. Want to know what color an octopus' blood is? Ask my son - (also, you can ask him why it is not the same color as your blood, if you're interested.) Want to know which sharks give birth to live young? Ask my son. Want to know how barnacles eat? Ask my son. (My kids and I actually saw this at the coast last week - it was pretty cool, if I do say so myself.)

My second son knows everything about Star Wars. Apparently this is something that lots of boys know everything about. I learned this lesson when I went to the park with three of my very good friends and their children. Between the 4 of us we have 14 children ages 10 and under. The families break down like this 4 boys, 3 boys/1 girl, 2 boys/1 girl/1 boy on the way, 1 girl/2 boys/1 boy on the way. That's a 13:3 boy-girl ratio, in case you're counting. You'll never see anything more wonderful and potentially dangerous than a pack of little boys roving free range through a park hitting each other about the head and shoulders with multiple colors of plastic light sabers. At one point one of the little Jedis ended up saberless. Sad. I pointed out to him that one of my sons had two light sabers, and because he was raised right, I was certain that he would willingly give one up. If hope had a face, it would've been his. However, when he turned around and figured out who I was talking about he explained (to a girl who was obviously in need of some serious Star Wars education) "Oh. Yeah, he's General Grievous. He's in Clone Wars episode three. He's actually supposed to have 4 light sabers." Apparently he was a Star Wars purist, and so settled for a blaster rather than further compromising the aforementioned Grievous.

You might think that when boys grow up, they no longer know the everything about the something that they knew as children. Not so. Totally not so.

My husband, for example, knows everything about cars and always has (according to his mother.) He too likes to share his knowledge with me. Before I met him, I knew where to put the key and the gas. I now know terms like "continuously variable transmission", "holly four barrel carbs" and "dual exhaust". Before I met him, I used the terms "wheels" and "tires" interchangeably. Now I know that wheels and tires are not the same thing, and you cannot call them the same thing. I also know that they come in different sizes. I even know what size tires our car takes.

I know this last little gem, because when you are 8 months pregnant and you are driving on the freeway to a baby blessing on a 95 degree Sunday afternoon with your three kids in the back seat of the car in their church clothes (complete with little man neck ties) and suddenly your car says "low tire pressure" and then "hey hope you are close to a cute little boutique that sells tires because your spare is already on the car and it's gonna be hard to drive on three wheels - even if they do do it in the movies all the time", you get to hear your husband telling the people that he's managed to reach on his cell phone over and over again what size tires you need followed by "a special tire order isn't going to help me - I'm literally sitting here with my kids in the car... (fill in the explanation from above here)." Also, I learned that the only people besides our family that observe the Sabbath anymore are the people that were already at the blessing (cell phones in the car, not the church) and the Les Schwab Tire Company - who slightly deflated the miracle of loosing a tire at the freeway exit by a tire store, by not being open on Sundays.

Other things that you should know about cars with flat tires - if you pull into a gas station, don't expect anyone that works there to give you any kind of helpful information, except how much a car wash costs, and also, if you buy your kids and yourself an ice cream treat to stop them from saying "stop putting your hand in my section" and "I can hear you breathing too loud through your nose" it will taste slightly of petrol, Valvoline and trucker stink - just like everything else you buy from the Chevron quick mart. Yum. Oh, and the patrons of the Chevron will keep asking your children where they are going dressed like that on such a hot day and then look at you like you're some kind of fundamentalist loony because you dared make your children change out of their camouflage shorts and Crocs before going to get religion.

Every boy knows everything about something, but every girl knows something about everything. The something about cars that I know is this -they break - but fear not, eventually someone will answer their cell phone, eventually you will come up with a plan to rescue your stranded family and eventually someone will be able to sell you the part you need...and then - who cares what it's called, if they sell a spare, buy one and keep it in your car.