Theme Thursday: Boys

This is one of my favorite subjects!  I don't even know where to begin!  I've blogged about today's theme many times already over the past two years.  I mean, you could read some of my thoughts about boys here, or here, or here, or here...Sorry, I write about boys a lot. Perhaps I should come up with a brand new post for my link-up with all the other Thursday Themers over at Clan Donaldson.

Most of my readers know this already, but if you're new here, I should tell you that I have five sons and no daughters (or make that I had no daughters, because my oldest son got married four years ago and gave me one--the best daughter I could ever ask for).

Mothers of all boys tend to get lots of pitying looks--well, at least I did.  And they get lots of sympathetic (and dare I say tactless?) comments from other mothers whose offspring include at least a few specimens who are of the sugar and spice and everything nice variety.

For instance, a Navy wife I used to hang out with back when I had three little lads under three once delivered this crushing blow: "All boys!  Too bad.  Maybe at least ONE of them will stay close to you guys."  (Huh?!  What kind of mother says that to a fellow mother? And I know they say, "A son is a son 'til he takes a wife, a daughter's a daughter all of her life," but I refuse to buy that.  And all you mothers of little boys out there who are reading this, don't believe it.  Even big boys love and need their mommies.)

By the time I was a pregnant mother of four boys, I got a lot of this: "Are you trying for your girl?" (Nope, we weren't trying or not trying, if you know what I mean.  God had His own plan.)

And this: "Oh, you must be trying for your girl!"   (Why else would I be pregnant a fifth time, right?  Surely not to get another boy!  Again, no; just hoping for a healthy baby.)  

And of course: "Oh, poor you--I hope you finally get your girl!"  (Why poor me?  I loved those crazy little guys of mine!  I thought I would be one lucky mom indeed if I got another one.)

After son #5 joined the team, it was: "Better you than me!  God bless you!"  (I should have always been ready to respond, "He already has!")

Okay, now for the piece de resistance: "You're a saint!"  (It's not at all true, and a bit embarrassing to hear.  But in this modern world where large families seem to have gone the way of rotary phones and 8-track players--and VHS tapes, too, although we still have a rather large collection of those bad boys--anyone with five children, especially five male children, gets mucho respect from the moms in their neighborhoods who feel like they have their hands full with one or two.)

I love boys.  I love their energy and their simplicity.  I love that they can blow up at each other one minute and be laughing together the next.  There were few undercurrents in our house while our boys were living in it together, few periods of sulking and moodiness.  I'm not saying it was all lollipops and rainbows--but it was great...it was just great.  God blessed me, for sure, when he sent me all those boys.  It didn't make me a saint (yet!  But fingers crossed!), but it made for a very interesting, full, and entertaining life.  It made me happy.  There may have been too many wadded up dirty socks lying around--on the floor, between the couch cushions, and sometimes even on the table (!); there may have also been a little too much bathroom humor.

(This 2004 picture of sons 3 through 5 is worth a thousand words...but you don't want to hear them.)

Let me rephrase that: there was definitely too much bathroom humor.  But I wouldn't trade my life for anyone else's.

Once when I was expressing my joy about being a full-time mom, telling my own mother how grateful I was for the life I was living, she said, "Well sure, you've got it made!  With all those boys, you're the queen."  I remember thinking, "But do queens have to spend as much time as I do changing dirty diapers, scrubbing toilets, rounding up smelly socks, doing mounds of laundry, slaving away in the kitchen, driving kids to school, to practice, to games...don't they have people who do all that kind of dirty work for them?"  

She was right, though.  They stopped wearing diapers and bickering over who got to sit up front in the station wagon, they started driving themselves to school and practice, they began to appreciate my cooking (even the pickiest of my eaters, sons #3 and #5)--they grew up, and they learned to truly give me the royal treatment.  They had an outstanding model to follow in their dad, and they have become men who are very much like him.

I love my boys!  (Did you get that already?)  Now head on over to Clan Donaldson for more testosterone-filled posts!