Yesterday, I admitted that I was mortified when I found out that my firstborn was going to be a girl.  I wanted a boy.  Somehow, I had convinced myself that raising a son would far easier than a daughter.  Boys aren’t emotional and hormonal.  They don’t spend hours in the bathroom.  They don’t give a crap about Barbie or Disney Princesses.  They can be entertained for days by a frog and a bucket full of mud.  Boys are easy.

Four years ago, God blessed me with a son, Will, and though it took a while for me to realize it, just this week I discovered something very important: I was wrong. Wrong. WRONG.

Boys are, in fact, the OPPOSITE of easy.  Boys are absolute trouble.

I should’ve realized it when we moved into this house.  The previous owners had a cat and had installed a “cat door” going in and out of the laundry room.  By the end of day two in our new home, we had to remove the door leaving a gaping hole in the paneling.  Why?  Will’s head kept getting stuck.

I have had to teach my son things that I never had to teach my daughter.  Important life lessons that are not found in any parenting book I’ve read.  Lessons like:

• “You are not allowed to hide from your sister in the dryer!”
• “The foot rest on the recliner is NOT a catapult!”
• “Let go!  You cannot ride up on the garage door handle!”
• “Do not stand up on the bathtub to pee in the potty!”

When I was a kid, I heard horror stories about the terror that my brother was when he was a child.  He set the woods behind our house on fire – twice.  He kept a black widow’s egg sack in a jar with holes poked in the top in his bedroom.  When the babies hatched… they were smaller than the holes.  He had pet eels who were magicians at getting out of their tanks.  I would come home from school to find them dried up on the carpet.  I know my mother pretty well and I’m surprised he made it out of childhood alive.  Sadly, I believe this is just foreshadowing of what is to come in my life.  *insert scary JAWS theme music here*