I have two boys.
When I was pregnant, I thought for sure we would be a family of all girls. Just the cowboy and his girls, wandering through life together. You can imagine my surprise when Todd leaned over, with tears on his cheeks, and told an exhausted me that we were the proud parents of a boy.
Well, we put that little swaddled-in-blue bundle in our car seat and headed for home. Two years later, a bundle of pink, and a few years after that, another blue bundle.
My boys are awesome. They are completely unique - couldn't be more different. But after having spent the better part of a decade watching the two of them together, I have learned a few things about boys in general.
1. Boys need adventure. Boys need to be the hero, to save the day or the damsel in distress. And if they can do it in camo or toting a gun of some kind, all the better. Boys need to skin their knees and put holes in their jeans {every last pair!} and boys need to play outside every. single. day.
For long periods.
2. Boys ruin stuff. Oh, they won't intentionally knock the screen out of the window and dent it all to heck. It will be a total accident that happened while they were spying on their sister and her friend. And
3. Boys love guns. Like it or not, they are hard wired to be protectors {see the aforementioned need to be the hero}. You can try to avoid it all you want but they will find a way to make a gun out of something - Legos, Tinker Toys, a found piece of wood, they will even chew their sandwich into the shape of gun.
4. Their fun is loud and often involves bodily noises. Nothing sends them into fits of laughter faster than a ... well, I don't think I need to elaborate on that one.
5. Verbal encouragement/affirmation is kin to food for boys. It lifts their spirits, gives them confidence and energy, and makes their chests puff up. They need to hear how brave, handsome, smart, and funny they are. That includes the one you are married to!
6. Boys need boundaries. Their hearts need much instruction, their bodies need regular quiet {though they will fight you on it} Boundaries give way to less stress and chaos in the home.
7. Boys need a man in their lives - and a strong one at that. They need an example of masculinity, one that cannot come from a mom{sorry ladies}.
Our lives may not always be calm or pretty or clean or exactly what I thought it would be, but thank heaven we have a sister who is! Oh, I KID!! Well, I am serious about the clean and pretty part, but she is just as noisy and rambunctious as her brothers. Our life is not as I expected it to be, but it's a life of full of beauty and I wouldn't change one beautiful, noisy, messy, joy-filled bit of it.
