A few weeks ago my oldest son asked a question that let to me having to discuss reproduction. When I later told my husband what I had said to DS1 he was slightly shocked. Now, when I explained myself, that DS1 had been asking more and more questions, and that I was giving the age appropriate condensed answers, my husband relaxed. We have always tried to be open with the boys about body parts and their names. It can be embarrassing, having them nonchalantly mention the name of a certain body part in the presence of someone else, but we feel it's healthier this way than keeping hush-hush about everything.

Another interesting thing I have noticed about my boys is how much they do NOT listen. I have learned this is a pretty common problem in raising boys, and have found Dr. James Dobson's "Bringing Up Boys" to be extremely helpful. If you suffer from the same seemingly hearing impaired family members like I do, here are some helpful hints (that always seem harder to implement in the heat of the moment):
*Be sure you have your son's attention when giving them direction.
*Physical contact works wonders...a hand on the shoulder, hugs, hands on either side of his face.
*EYE CONTACT, and not the glazed over staring into space look. Make sure your son looks you in the eye when you are giving direction.
*Have him repeat back to you what you just said.
*Expect an immediate response. If he waits to finish what he's doing, i.e. book, video game, etc., he'll most likely forget what you told him to do.
***These also help in communicating with husbands.

Recently, I was blessed by giving birth to a beautiful little girl, and I have since been finding out how truly different boys and girls are. Where my boys instinctively make car noises when playing with Hot Wheels, DD1 either chews on the cars, or holds it to her ear and says "Hi."
The boys would hear us say "No. That's not a cupboard for you to play in," and they would pick up the pace to beat us to the off limits object. Now, DD1 will sometimes do the same (after all, it's in our nature to want what we can't have), but she is determined to make us feel bad about denying her anything she wants. She'll wail and flop on the ground with great big crocodile tears flowing down her cheeks, and her face will turn splotchy from crying. Talk about emotional!

I finally finished reading Dr. James Dobson's "Bringing Up Girls" and found a few things interesting enough to stick with me.
*From the ages of 6 months to 3 years, a baby girl's brain is bathed in estrogen at an extreme amount. So when your little girl seems to be PMS-ing, she is (in a weird sort of way). Crabby one minute, lovey the next, never know exactly what she's thinking, cries like you're torturing her when she doesn't get her way....Dr. Dobson calls this the first puberty.
*A loving and involved father brings so many blessings to a little girl, but an interesting tidbit is this; the daughter of an involved father may experience a delay in puberty. When a girl is young, her body is picking up her daddy's pheromones and chemical reactions are taking place in her body. This reaction can delay the onset of early puberty, which in turn can protect her from certain diseases in the future. It's obviously not fool proof, but it definitely makes sense. At the beginning of time, when life was all about surviving, if a girl lost her father early on, it could be a death sentence. With her father gone, her body would not be picking up on those fatherly pheromones, which in turn tells her body to become a woman early on. This would make her a candidate for marriage, which would in turn bring her safety and protection from her husband.

So, all that being said, we've got a lot of varying dynamics in our household. We have two rambunctious boys vying for dominance, and a little girl in the middle of her first puberty. Phew, it's exhausting! But so worth it!