on boys -- or, more accurately, on my boy

I'm often asked whether I find it different, raising a boy.  Since I do have  two girls, I suppose it's only natural that people would ask how my boy is different.

Quite honestly, I don't know what to tell people.

I believe that little boys and little girls are different.  Decidedly different.  But I also believe that each of  my children is different.  Decidedly different.

For example, Kathleen and Madeline have distinctly different personalities, preferences, and habits.  Kathleen has slept through the night (quite soundly) since she was a baby.  Madeline still wakes frequently,  needing reassurance to fall back to sleep.  Kathleen is shy around strangers.  Madeline thrives in settings with lots of new people.  Kathleen loves cake; Madeline wants ice cream.  Kathleen devours hamburgers; Madeline wolfs down french fries.  When  presented with frozen peas and carrots, Kathleen will take the carrots and Madeline will eat the peas.  (Convenient, no?)

John David is decidedly different from his sisters.

But is the difference John David's gender?  Or is it that he's John David, and not Kathleen or Madeline?  I find myself biting my lip and grasping at words.

Mostly what I want to say is, "Yes. Raising a boy is different.  But I don't have quite enough data to make that statement with a reasonable level of certainty.  Could you check back with me when I've got a couple more boys?  And maybe another girl?"

(Not that we'll necessarily have that many children.  I'm just saying:  I'd need a much larger sample size for clarity.  Really.)

So, while I'm not ready to write a treatise on the difference between little boys and  little girls, I'm more than happy to share some of the things that make my experience raising John David, well, different.

: :  For starters, the kid is big.  BIG.  At ten months old, he's 26 pounds.  That's far, far larger than either of the girls.  Of course, he started out bigger.  But, still.  That's the size of most two-year-olds.  We were out of infant tylenol this evening and just gave him a dose of children's tylenol instead.  He qualifies as a child!

: :  So far, John David's not showing much interest in walking.  He crawls with frightening speed.  He pulls up, he cruises (while hanging onto furniture), but he doesn't really try to stand unassisted (except for when we trick him into it, and then he lowers himself into a sit) and he's not particularly enamored of walking while hanging onto people.  The girls both walked by 9.5 months, so John David's running a bit behind our curve.  We've heard that boys are generally slower to develop gross motor skills, though, so that makes sense.  And we're not worried about it.  But I won't lie, friends;  I'll be super-relieved when he walks, if only because I'm tired of listening to him wail because I won't let him crawl in the tanbark at the park or on the rain-soaked lawn or what-have-you.

: :  He's a pickier eater.  The girls generally ate what we gave them, particularly by the time we hit the table food stage, which is where John David is now.  They just liked food.  But if John David isn't interested in what we're offering, he's not going to eat it.  At all.  Even if he's hungry.  We're not making mealtime fights or anything, but there have been a couple days that I've thought, "Oh, he's just not hungry," and taken him out of the highchair at breakfast.  And then he's been miserable and cranky until lunchtime.  I'm a bit slow,  but I've recently realized that he plays by banging on the pantry door those days.  Nice.  Of course, when he cares to, he can eat.  A lot.

: :  In the injustice department:  he's got more hair and better eyelashes.  Really.  In her first birthday photo, Madeline was practically bald.  Kathleen, too.

When they're older, the girls will be jealous.  (I mean, I am.  I need gobs of Maybelline's Great Lash to look like that.  And if I rub my eyes, I look like a raccoon instead.)

: :  John David's favorite places to play are the places he's not allowed:  in the laundry room, where we keep the trash; in the pantry, chewing on the bag of onions; in the kitchen cupboards with the breakable serving ware; in the bathroom, where he favors splashing in toilet water and eating the toilet paper.  (We now have a collection of rolls of toilet paper that are gnawed on the edges.  We can't very well put those out for guests!)  I know that the girls were attracted to the things we didn't want them to have, but I honestly don't remember them being this interested in all that is declared off-limits.

: :  This one I'm almost afraid to write: for the last few months, we've been leaving John David in the nursery at church.  He prefers his Mama (he's smart!), but he seems to do okay with other people, too.  That took a lot longer with our girls.  (Though it might be that I didn't even try to leave them in the nursery until they were older.)

: :  The girls have each had stuffed animal loveys, but John David loves his soft, white blanket from Nan and Grandpa.  We don't have a back-up.  Heaven help us if we lose it.

: :  He's stubborn.  Really, really stubborn.  When there was a break in the rain a few days ago, I let the girls play in the muddy backyard.  (We all needed a break.)  But because it was muddy, I couldn't let John David loose out there.  Instead, I set up the baby gate so that I could hear the girls outside (and see them out the big living room window) and I played with John David in the living room.  It might be more accurate to say that I tried to play with John David.  He spent the better part of an hour and a half wailing or whining because I'm not nearly as interesting as his sisters.  Despite my best attempts to distract him, he just wanted out.  OUT!

: :  In what I'm sure is just the beginning of a life-long love affair with big, noisy machines, John David is fascinated by the vaccuum.  He loves it.  When he sees me pull it out of the closet, he squeals and comes racing towards it.  Vaccuuming when he's not in the pack 'n play is a challenge because he's always trying to tackle the vaccuum, and I'm afraid I'll somehow suck him up into the vaccuum bag.  This is entirely different from the girls, who still hate the vaccuum.  When they were babies, they'd wail at the mere sight of it.  I have a distinct memory of a pre-verbal Kathleen on our condo's lanai (balcony) with her father, signing "no" furiously while I vaccuumed inside.  Even now the girls tend to race away to "hide" when they see or hear (mostly hear) the vaccuum.

: :  And finally, John David is tough.  Now, all three of our children are rather rough-and-tumble.  They play hard.  Sometimes they fall.  Sometimes they run right into things.  And while sometimes there's some whining about it, frequently they just get up and keep going.  One of my particular favorites is the way you'll ask Kathleen, "Are you all right?"  and she'll respond with a pained "No," without ever stopping what she's doing.  John David has this trait in spades.  Today his foot had a run-in with a gallon of paint...more the can than the paint, to be honest.  And though he's now sporting some nasty bruises, he hardly seems bothered.    He did cry at the time, but with a little snuggling and a little mama's milk, he was recovered in minutes, much more interested in what his sisters were doing than in nursing.  Even the pediatric nurse commented about it when she gave him some vaccinations a few months back -- "I've never seen a baby so tough!"  Predictably, his father was quite pleased.

He is, after all, a boy.