How to be a Boy

                                    

Excited to start your day you wake up at the crack of dawn,

grab the clothes off the floor, mix matched and smelling like yesterday’s baseball, you haphazardly dress yourself.

Baseball cap replaces brushing hair.

"Create a fort out of the abandon chicken pen, or construct a mud slide on the ditch bank?" are part of the serious conversations you partake in while fishing.

                                    

Happily you spend hours in the hot sun making a mudslide…

After the sun has set, dripping sweat, talking a mile a minute, telling tall- tales how you don’t need a bath, inhaling food like needed air, begging to sleep outside in a tent…you count the remaining days until school will start and sigh… that summer is passing by too fast.

photos: Sacha with his cousins, Sam and Joe, dreaming up ideas after ideas. Telling me often, "Being here in California (with his cousins) is like being in Paradise."



Comments

35 responses to “How to be a Boy”

  1. Such a warm and cheery sense of nostalgia.

  2. carolg@PB

    Have you been hanging out with Winslow Homer
    These pictures are right out of his genre! Nice 🙂

  3. yup…. you have captured how to be a boy in prose ande in picture !

  4. Shannon L

    Ahhh. Those lazy, hazy, summer days. Kids really know how to live them.

  5. Britt-Arnhild

    Blessed kids, and blessed parnets to be able to give kids memories of their life. Thanks for sharing Corey.

  6. Ah the most magical moments of childhood.
    Bless them all.
    Love and smiles!

  7. Making memories!

  8. I know those boys well!!! Just give them a place to fish and they’re set! These pics remind me of my own backyard;o) thanks for visiting me during your vacation C! anyplace one can let ones hair down is paradise to me;o) Have fun boys and enjoy! xo

  9. One of favourite sayings is ‘dirty kids are happy kids!’They are right about the baths too,people pay a fortune for mudpacks!

  10. Oh, to be a boy!

  11. blackbird

    Oh! mine would be right there with him in the muck and mire!

  12. LOL-I was a tomboy, so I’m jealous…I remember doing those things…building forts, sliding in mud, etc…etc…Very cool stuff!

  13. AnnieElf

    This is like a Rockwell painting come to life, Corey. Your children are going to so appreciate the gift of your words and pictures when they are grown.

  14. susan@artstream

    what a wonderful experience for your children! and the mud is fabulous…

  15. Paradise indeed! Oh to be a child again, with the joy of life at our fingertips!

  16. It sounds like heaven to me too! Boys and summer…there is NOTHING better.
    a.

  17. cruststation

    How wonderful! would love to find childhood paradise right here right now. Your pictures always make me smile 🙂

  18. Oh, bless his heart! I love that he is having such a good time! *sigh* I love boys…
    🙂

  19. snowsparkle

    when i was a farm girl, i spent time exactly like these boys. nothing better than a muddy slide into a ditch on a summer day! thanks for this vivid reminder of pure joy!

  20. simple me

    It’s so wonderful to be a child…
    paula

  21. So sweet. Boys in their element. Doing what they ought. Mud, and sweat, ravenous and energetic, just being boys. It will be a summer for them to remember always.
    lauren

  22. Mrs.Staggs

    I love little boys and their adventures! This brought back lots of happy memories of when mine was so young. Thanks for bringing me a smile today Corey!

  23. mikaelah

    what lovely photos and the writing really takes me there to the place where it is ok to wear the same clothes everyday. My son feels the same way about visiting his cousins in Michigan.

  24. madeleine

    Boys, boys, boys. I love their sense of adventure and ability to create an amusement park from some mud and a few bricks. Fantastic photos, Corey.

  25. ally bean

    that’s truly “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” personified. what a great post.

  26. Oh to be that age again! At the ripe old age of 30 I can start saying that sort of thing now.
    No really, these photos and your words have brought on a wave of nostalgia for me, all those long summer days spent mucking around with friends by the local river.
    Thanks, LJ

  27. Huh. I use that baseball hat versus hairbrush trick too. I knew Sacha was my kind of guy.

  28. So great that he has boy cousins his own age and the freedom of country living to do outdoor stuff together.

  29. Kim Carney

    That sounds like a perfect recipe for a perfect day.
    Excuse me, THIS is a part of MY morning routine:
    “grab the clothes off the floor, mix matched and smelling like yesterday’s baseball, you haphazardly dress yourself”

  30. mary ann

    yep, that sounds about right!
    🙂 mary ann

  31. Paris Parfait

    This post says it all – the joys of summer! Wonderful! xo Tara

  32. Marilyn

    I suppose it’s not a coincidence that a town with that name isn’t far from where you are. 😉

  33. homemakerang

    dont forget the stinky feet!

  34. Tara Marie

    This is the greatest gift of childhood…..being boys and loving every minute of it!

  35. Terrific capturing of that alternately lazy and exuberant summer spirit… we can come back to this in February when we need refreshing!

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