One of my very favorite books is called,

It is a book about a mother’s love for her son. It details the numerous messy stages from childhood to adulthood. Throughout the book, despite the child’s total disregard for cleanliness and order, the mother still loves her son.

I admire this mother.

I am currently in the 11-year-old boy phase (with number 5).

My particular 11-year-old boy is not a fan of brushing his teeth, taking showers or changing his clothing. He doesn’t find any value in eating healthy foods, washing his hands or clipping his fingernails. He ‘claims’ that he does not know how to change his sheets or sweep the floor. He ‘has to’ swim in his underwear, because he mysteriously ‘forgets’ his swim suit every time we go swimming.

Yet, his is still kind-of little, and kind-of cute. He can almost pull it off.  Almost.

I have successfully raised three other boys past age of 11. They all regularly shower, brush their teeth and change their clothes (without any encouragement!). I hope that someday soon he will start to care about the color of his teeth and the clothes that he wears.

But not today.

When I was dropping him off at school, I noticed his pants. They were very dirty and smeared with gravy from the previous night’s dinner.

“Those pants are disgusting.” I said. “They are covered in gravy.”

“They are not disgusting,” he replied. “Gravy is good!”

Oh, well. I tried.