We all know about gender gaps.  How boys & girls communicate differently, how they feel differently, and even how they hear differently, but now I am a firm believer that we even SEE differently!  My good friend over at Life Among da Boyz  posted about how she has to "ASK' her boys to help pick up around the house and tell them exactly what needs to be picked up.  This cracked me up because just today I had a similar experience and have come to truly believe that boys just don't "see" things the way us moms do!  Today I was telling one of my boys to pick up the front room because he was having a friend come over.  He came back in like 2 minutes to proudly announce that the room was finished and ask what his next chore should be.  Well, I was not born yesterday, and I wasn't in any way going to believe that the room could be picked up in 2 minutes!  I told him that I KNEW it could not possibly be done already and he said "Well, "I" think it is clean and I don't know what else to do in there".  So we went in there together and I pointed out to him that there were socks on the floor, big chunks of fuzz - don't ask - all over the carpet, cups on the bookshelf, and books shoved into corners - only "I" am allowed to use that technique in this house thank you very much!. 
He responded by saying "OOOOOHHHH!" as if surprised by these revelations!  Like somehow the scales fell from his eyes and finally he could really see.  I then proceeded to list EXACTLY what should be fixed. But, honestly, I could see his eyes glazing over, his mind wandering to some far off dream land like the town of "Perfect" in those Walgreens commercials. . . .

A town where boys never have to pick stuff up or clean.  They never have to do chores, bathe, or cut their hair.  A town called Perfect . . .

So, to save us both the frustration I made him a short check off list and that worked.  He knew exactly what I was wanting him to do and he felt a sense of accomplishment (and relief) when everything on the list was crossed off.

I really do believe that boys (guys in general) see the world differently than we do so I need to remind myself to be very specific, assign tasks in short spurts.  It makes me wonder what things they "see" in the world that I'm missing!