I have four sons. In the old days this would have meant I was blessed, but in modern times this statement is more often met with sympathy. Other mums assume I must long for a little girl to keep me company, but the reality is that I adore my house full of boys and suspect adding a girl to the mix might have spoilt things.
I will admit that I lap up being queen of the family, lavished with love by all my boys. I revel in the fact that every one of them is a mummy's boy, always ready with kisses and cuddles, and forever fighting to be the first to give them to me.
Every one covets the seat next to me on the sofa or the dinner table, though I am less enthusiastic about the fact that all of them would choose me as top companion for toilet visits too – there are disadvantages to being an adored mum.
But what I really appreciate about boys is how simple and straightforward they are. I went out for lunch the other day with a friend and her two daughters. A tantrum was thrown by one of the girls over an incorrect meal order. With my boys that would have been it, a scream and shout, a few tears and the row is over. But my friend's daughter sulked for the entire meal.
I was shocked, as I have never experienced a sulk before. Boys just don't have the patience or concentration to hold a grudge, or even to remember for very long what it was they were upset about. My five-year-old Max will often break out in giggles halfway through a tantrum, because whatever the problem was has slipped his mind.
This also means that bad moods blow away like the fluff from a dandelion clock, instead of stewing and filling the house. From my experience of growing up with a sister, girls can be so moody they fill the house with their bad temper and it has staying power.
I love the way my sons' boisterous, active natures has swept through the house rushing us out to the park, off on bike rides and into after school football and judo classes.
I enjoy the simplicity of feeding and clothing them. Put food on the table and they will eat it, in vast quantities, which I hear grow even bigger as they do. Put clean clothes out and they will wear them. They don't care if the grey trousers go with the blue sweater, in fact they don't even notice.
I have even found that many of the clichés about boys aren't true. I worried that with only boys my interests would be sidelined as they obsessed about sport or computer games with their dad. How wrong could I be?
My sons love nothing more than watching cooking and home improvement programmes with mummy – much to my husband's disgust. Jacob, my eldest, and I spent a cosy hour on the sofa oohing and ahhing over Kirstie's Homemade Home last night, while Max, my five-year-old, likes to watch Nigella with me and, even better, to help me cook her recipes afterwards.
Jacob likes shopping for clothes, goes to ballet classes and yet is an avid fan of Ben 10 and playing fighting games, so with him I get the best of both worlds. Max is more of a man's man, but he has such charm I know he will make the perfect husband one day.
I can come downstairs in an old nightie with my hair all over the place and he will declare that I am the prettiest mummy ever. Even more impressive if I change my hair or nail polish he is the first to notice, usually declaring it beautiful. Both my older boys love a chat, which is refreshing after my monosyllabic husband, and neither is keen on watching sports on TV, thank goodness.
I can't say that having boys is better than having girls because I don't know what having a daughter would be like. But I can say that wouldn't swap my chaos of little boys for anything in the world, and I am thrilled that I will never have to cope with explaining about periods, buying a first bra or dealing with a moody teenage girl.
For the other side, read why one mum only wants girls.
What do you think? Do you enjoy your boys or wish for a girl?