by Whitney Barthel posted in Parenting

I came out of the bathroom from washing the poop off my 3-year-old who didn?t manage to make it to the toilet in time (and the poop off my 6-year-old who managed to step in said poop) to find my 17-month old sitting next to the tipped-over garbage can, eating a discarded banana peel.

This is the life of a boy mom.
When I was younger, I was certain I was going to have girls. I watched one of my friends have three beautiful girls and I started planning my afternoons painting fingernails, brushing hair, and making Target runs.
Then, that didn?t happen.
My husband and I welcomed one boy...then another...and then another...and another. At first, I was disappointed. Especially after we decided to wait until the birth of our fourth child to find out the sex. Which I incorrectly guessed was girl. I may have actually cried a little.
But I quickly recovered, thankful for a healthy baby.
And, while I know raising girls poses its own challenges, it seems to be more an internal emotional warfare versus the physical toll raising boys can have on a mother.
I have found that raising boys is not at all unlike trying to herd a pack of feral cats. No matter how much you try to control them, they will always find new ways to break things, get dirty, and push the limits of human mortality.
I used to feel bad for boy moms. They always seemed frazzled. In their eyes, you could tell that raising their boys had opened up a whole new world -- both exciting ...