I’ve been wanting to chronicle the experience of raising a boy - the great, the less great and the hey! stop don’t jump off of that, are you daft! But every time I sit down to do so I find it difficult to get my thoughts in order.

I obviously had no idea what it would be like to have a boy. I wanted a girl for all of the usual reasons but was as much overjoyed when Jacob was born as if he had been a girl. In fact, I was admittedly excited to be mother to a boy. I knew my bond with him would be eternal and that he would teach me things a girl could not.

There have been challenges with Jacob and I”m not sure all of them have been because of his being male. He’s a lot like me, you see, and while I was a good child I was a constant source of dismay for my mother. This because I am relentless and not a little opinionated. I always tell people that Jacob is me, the jacked up version. He’s got the boy thing on top of what would already have been a rather strong willed personality. He’s got the desire to bash things about and jump on people when they are not expecting it. I wasn’t so much with the physical. I was more with the talkytalkytalk. I never understood why my mother found me so tedious.

I know now.

I really do want to write about my journey through mothering a boy but admit that I don’t know where to start. I don’t want to journal it so much as I want to chronicle it. I want to write about it and apply whatever wisdom I can glean from taking the time to think about it. I feel honored to be Jacob’s mother and I think in the past few years I’ve gotten so busy with the business of parenting that I’ve forgotten to really notice what I am doing. Jacob is an awesome kid who I know will be an awesome grown up person. I want to really put thought into how I’m raising him because some day he will be in a position to consider his childhood and I would like for him to think that I was present and thoughtful about being his mom.