Boys, boys, boys

To all my friends and colleagues with boys, I offer up this rip-roaring screed on being the mother of three boys, especially to my fellow mothers of three (or more!) boys — Patty B, Lisa B, Susan, Barb, Terri, Kathy, Mona, Chris, Maggie, Sue and Mary (for having triplet boys!).

Most of us have older boys now, but I think we can certainly relate to this on many levels.

They close in around you and gawk and gasp and gape as you slip off your night drawers. There you are -- naked, nude, undone. And there they are -- staring at your dicklessness. You try to change the scenery by swiftly slipping into your rather stylish and mentally uplifting boy-short undies and matching halter bra, and saying, "Isn't this a pretty color?" But no amount of pastel can distract them from the fact that you are clearly, physically, not one of them.

You are certain the baby is eyeing this new halter bra and thinking, "Why has she kept that one from me?" The other two remain in pure boyhood shock, with their hands down their pants and that ten-thousand-mile-away stare you've seen thousands of times on boys and grown men alike. "Do you have to go to the bathroom?" you ask, and they quickly remove their hands from their pants. Sure, they see you like this nearly every day, but today they ask you, "What is that?"

And to my sister, Jen, who come September will find out what it means to be a boy mom though she’s had plenty of hands-on experience as most-favorite aunt, I leave you with this. When you’re in the midst just remember what dad always says: “This, too, shall pass.” :)

It's a pooping party, and you're the star. You are the star who is needed right now because this is a crucial moment in these boys' daily psycho-emotional lives. After boys poop, they hate to flush it down. They want to study their accomplishment. They need Mom to approve of it too, Mom to admire it, Mom to wave it good-bye, bye-bye boom, as it swirls down the whirlpool pot. And after it is all gone, they are terrified to wash it off their hands. They want to keep it with them all day long -- just like men who will keep the after-sex musk on them all day as a kind of secret they share with their bodies, themselves.