5 Things a Mother Should Know If She's Expecting a Boy - a Sneak Peak into Early Boyhood

When my doctor studied my ultrasound and told me I was having a boy, it took me a couple of days to overcome my anxiety. How do you raise a boy? This was my first pregnancy and I was terrified. I assumed girls should be easy for a woman to raise a right? They like clothes, princesses and tiaras and they are pretty much an extension of yourself - at least until they are old enough to have their own opinions.

But what about boys? I never babysat boys or had baby brothers, I didn't even have male baby dolls when I was a kid! I got along very well with my male friends at school, but how would I cope with the transition between a cute baby and an articulate seven year old. What is it like to have a little four year old in the house?

If I sang lullabies to my child and read him fairytales, and fussed over him like I would have done with a daughter, would I leave an indelible mark on his psyche and transform him into a "mama's boy" for the rest of his life?

Three and a half years into motherhood, I feel just as comfortable with boys as with girls. Here are some of the lessons you'll learn as you see your baby journey from baby hood into boyhood.

Lesson 1 Keep your Clairiol handy - you will get plenty of white hair

I was six years old the first time I went down a slide by myself. Heights weren't my forte when I was little, and I started experimenting with heights only because my friends pushed me. My husband isn't a big fan of heights either, he cringed when I used to go rock climbing and he often chickens out of roller coaster rides.

With my son it is the complete opposite. He is constantly trying to defy gravity. The first time I put him on a baby slide, he was one, by the time he was one and a half, I had to physically restrain him otherwise he would climb on the big boy slide meant for children over 7. By two years I had given up would let him go down the scary high slide by himself and he loved it! He was a thrill seeker, way before he had all his milk teeth! The tall climbing wall on the jungle gym, the monkey bars, anything that is even slightly dangerous seems to make boys (and adventurous girls) happy.

Lesson 2- Yes you can read fairytales to a boy - only of a different kind.

When I was a kid I grew up hearing Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, I loved to have my parents read to me and I would quietly listen for hours until I fell asleep. Seeing how active my son was by the time he turned 2, I never thought there would come a time where I would read to my son.

"Boys don't sit still for a minute!" Everyone told me, "Don't expect miracles!" yet I persevered.

Taking him to story time at the library was a big mistake - he really couldn't sit still for five minutes, let alone the twenty minutes it took to finish a story. Then I tried reading short nursery rhymes as part of the bedtime routine - again I failed. My son was way more interested in playing with the sheets than books. By two and a half, his interest started growing as he started to become more articulate and after a few months, he would often come to me with his favorite book for a read aloud session.

No, it was not the fairytales I was used to. He loved the wolf who huffs and puffs, in The Three Little Pigs, and Jack and the Beanstalk. He would sleep to 'scary' stories about monsters and dragons, but they are still fairytales even though they have no fairies in them

Lesson 3 Toddlers are human beings not walking stereotypes

Boys are messy. Girls are tidy. Boys like bugs and mud cakes. Girls are little princesses. Society pushes us to believe that our likes and dislikes are the product of our gender. Girls have a sort of instinct that pushes them to be attracted to clothes and dolls houses while boys play with trucks in the mud, but studies show that our likes and dislikes, especially at an early age, are more a product of the way we are brought up than our inherent nature.

Since the stereotype is that boys are messy, by the time he was born I had nearly resigned to spending the coming twenty years picking up stuff from the floor and cleaning up my son's guck.

Boy, had I been mistaken! My son had taken after my father's freaking obsessive- organized genes! Don't get me wrong, he is a normal 3 year old who likes to mess with finger paint and leave toys scattered around the room, but he cleans up after he finishes!

On average it takes 2 warnings to get him to clean up and when he makes a mess with his food, he runs to get a kitchen towel and 'tries' to wipe off the guck. Obviously the result is not perfect, but I really appreciate the effort !

Who said boys have to be sloppy!

Lesson 4 Boys will make you explore different worlds

I love animals, can tolerate spiders and frogs but I hate everything with scales, especially if it slithers on it's belly. Dinosaurs were scary lizards that frightened me till I reached teenage.

By the time my son was two, bugs, dinosaurs and (yikes!) snakes became his favorites. The first time he dragged me into the reptile house at the zoo I wanted to die, but I held his hand and tried to act calm because I didn't want to transmit my fear to him. My guts balled into a tight knot when I saw my adorable baby boy knocking on the glass separating him from anacondas and boas. I wanted to scream my head off when my child said bats are "cute," and I was terrified when I followed him to the roach cave.

At first it was scary, really scarrrrry! I hate snakes. I am terrified of them. Whenever my husband took my son to the zoo and came back with some book about reptiles I secretly wanted to kill him. I would have nightmares (I am not speaking figuratively here) if my son watched one of those nature documentaries about reptiles, yet slowly I grew out of it. I'll never say I love snakes but at least I am not running out of the room screaming if I see a lizard on TV. I even got to hold an alligator!

The funny part is that my son's enthusiasm for dinosaurs was infective. Now I have learned all the names of creatures living during the Mesozoic, and can distinguish a carnivore from a herbivore by looking at his toes.

Raising boys is cool! Isn't it?

Lesson 5 Don't reach funny conclusions if your son plays with dolls and likes pink.

Children like experimenting because that is how they learn. Boys like pink and play with dolls because they are new and they want to explore what is different. The first time I took my son to a common area playroom he picked a doll dressed in pink. He carefully inspected it for some time before he lost interest.

In those few minutes I didn't know what to think. The thing kept repeating itself for almost a month. He would run to the doll as soon as he got to the playroom, play with it for some minutes and then forget about it. I didn't know what to make out of it, until I realized there were other boys, sometimes even older than my boy, who were playing with dolls.

Finally my common sense kicked in and I realized that boys are rarely given girls toys to play with, so it is natural they want to experiment with a new thing. A young toddler has a vague idea about what is gender appropriate and a pink hairbrush is just a new toy in a different color. The problem lies in the adult's head not in the children's.

After a few weeks the young boys in the playroom started playing with gender appropriate toys. It was fun to see how little it took to make them lose interest in girlie things.

Roaring dinosaur toys, rockets and scaring girls with plastic snakes is more fun than sitting at a plastic table drinking invisible tea out of a tiny cup! It took me thirty four years and my little man to realize it, but boys are way cool!