I have two boys.  My sister has three girls.

Add them up and whaddya get?

Two boys are sort of like having six girls.

So imagine having six girls plus another three – that’s like nine kids in a room at once.

This may not make any sense at all.  But if you’re a mom of just boys, you sort of understand what I’m getting at.

Whenever I get together with my sister and her family, they are always surprised by the energy my boys have.  And amused.

Frightened too.

Boys are different – yes they are.

They like to shout out bathroom words for no real reason.

They laugh at their own farts.

They like to burp out the alphabet.

They don’t have the best table manners.

They are rough and rambunctious.

They want to wrestle like UFC champs and jump off furniture like Superman.

Ah yes, boys boys boys!

My boys.

And yes the boys meet up with the girls, some adorable things happen.

Like my almost five-year-old wanting to cuddle with his ten-year-old cousin.  Or watching him play with his four-year-old cousin and her doll house.

Or when my seven-year-old battles it out with my niece on the Wii.

I cherish these moments because the next time we are all together, all of them will be just a little bit older.

When I see my nieces twice a year, three times if I’m lucky, what amazes me is that they have grown before my eyes.  I’m saddened by the fact that I haven’t been able to watch their features change, their personalities form, their vocabularies matured.

My 10-year-old niece happens to also be my goddaughter.  The baby girl I once knew is a tween, but still that adorable baby girl that would fall asleep laying on top of me.

If my sister lived near, we would be visiting every weekend at the very least.  I’d have time to watch their soccer games, put braids in their hair, paint their toenails and go to their school concerts.

Now I’m just left with creating amazing holiday memories and squeezing every ounce of fun into those much-too-short visits.