I know what Boys like

As the mother of two boys, I am often asked if Bobby and I are going to “try for a girl”.

I understand why people ask this – the ideal family has both and I’m a pretty girly-girl so it seems like something I would want to “try for”. The thing if I tried, I’d probably end up with a third boy and which would make the male female ratio in my house 4-1 and there’s already way too much testosterone in my house.

The other thing is, I never really wanted a girl. Don’t get me wrong. I love being a girl. And I’m totally a girls’ girl. I’ve always had a million girlfriends and I just couldn’t live without a single one of them. And I absolutely adore my nieces, Brooke and Bella, and my friends’ daughters and Mac and Charlie’s many girlfriends. And, oh how I want to go for manicures, and shop for hair accessories, and do princess stuff. I love princess stuff and there isn’t one princess in my house full of superheroes. Well, if you don’t count me, of course.

The thing is because I am a girl who had a rough, often traumatic relationship with her own mother, as soon as I was pregnant I worried “what if it’s a girl and I make her feel awful her whole life the way my mom did to me?” The thought consumed me. I HAD to have a boy because I was not fit to raise a girl. These fears were hard for people I confided in to understand. They thought that because I was so aware of how my mom made me feel, I would never do the same thing to my own daughter. And they were probably right. But what always got me is that my mom wasn’t a bad mom. She was a GREAT mom. Maybe the best mom. And when she was tearing me down and making me feel awful, she had no idea that she was doing it. She thought by saying things like “why can’t you be as pretty as Anne?” that she was inspiring me to diet when really she was just making me feel like “crap, I’m the fugly side kick”. I know now that she never ever meant to hurt me and that from her spot in heaven she regrets it and I completely forgive her. But I still can’t risk living through that again.

So during both pregnancies I said “I just want a healthy baby” but I secretly prayed and prayed for boys who I could love and not ruin and both times I got my wish. Not just my wish but better because if you’ve never met my boys they are hands down the cutest, most hilarious, charming little devils you will ever meet. And I wouldn’t trade either of them for the world, but more often then I’d like to admit I wonder what “my girl” would be like and if maybe I sold myself short by “ending the cycle”. Maybe I could have handled it and my girl would have rocked. Probably. Definitely.

Luckily for me, these moments are fleeting because then I go to the party store and see all the super sexed up costumes for girls. And I see pictures of my four year old niece in a bikini posing like she’s a Victoria Secret Angel. And I watch the old 90210’s and see what poor Brenda Walsh’s parents went through.

Last week I watched two of Mac and Charlie’s friends for full day which doubled the number of kids I usually watch for more than an hour or two. God bless all my friends with four or more kids because it was hard! Getting four children under six to walk through a parking lot and keeping everyone alive was maybe the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

Then throw in the fact that one of them is a very pretty 3 year old girl and you’ve got problems. See my little pal Ella is pretty, but she’s not just normal 3 year old pretty. She’s 3 year old with two really gorgeous teenage sisters pretty which means she knows how to work it like no one else her age (well, except my previously mentioned bikini model niece). So anyhow, the day is going fine, all the kids are playing in the basement when all of a sudden Mac, Ella and her brother Matthew come running up stairs at varying levels of hysteria. See it seems that Ella decided she wanted to marry Mac and Mac was cool with that if “marry” meant “chase around” so he was playing a game of chase with her. Matthew, though, apparently unaware that he does not come from some sort of crazy Appalachian hillbilly family (his family is really quite lovely and normal) was brought to tears because he “loves Ella more than anything in the world and thought they were gonna get married”. You’d think Ella, his adoring sister, would feel bad that her brother was crying but instead she flipped her hair and hung onto Mac’s shoulder and taunted Matthew until he finally got so frustrated that he spit on Mac which made Mac feel the need to “crush” Matthew by grabbing his chest and twisting the skin until it was red. My child is a real prize, too. And then they all came running upstairs and expected me to deal with it.

So what did I do? First I put them all in time out in different parts of the kitchen. Then I sat Charlie, who had done nothing wrong, up on the counter in front of them and let him eat an entire candy bar by himself. Yes, I am super mature.

And then I walked from child to child and said “Matthew – we don’t spit on our friends”, “Mac – we don’t ‘crush’ our friends”, “Ella – we don’t use our good looks to make others feel bad”.

And as that ridiculous statement came out of my mouth and the pretty 3 year old starred at me like I was a space alien, suddenly all the reasons why I was happy not having just boys seemed clear.

Boys are so simple. Spitting and “crushing”, I can deal with. Bring it on!

All the girl bullshit, I will watch with amusement from the sidelines.
And I’m pretty sure I’ll never feel like I missed anything.