Welcome to Guest Post Month at The MOB Society! Today’s post comes from Laura Bouter, homeschooling mother of three and author of the blog Contented Motherhood. Please welcome her!

Today I took my oldest boy out shopping for new clothes. Such a chore falls into the catergory of drudgery for an eight-year-old boy, so I promised him a treat at the end of it. Sitting down with our mini-blizzards, I noticed another mom out with her boy too. We smiled companionably at each other with that knowing that is reserved for moms of boys.

See, I’ve come to believe that boy moms are special. Especially eldest boys, who are exact mirror images – personality wise – of oneself. Lest you think I am calling myself special, I will be the first to tell you that the road I have walked the last eight years has not been easy.

Maybe it’s just me, but when I held my newborn boy, the first one to make me a mom, I felt a love like no other wash over me. I never, ever dreamed, as I held his slippery, warm body in my arms and cried post-labour tears of joy, that he and I were at the beginning of a long, tiring, yet joyous journey.

When I watched him throw fit after fit as a toddler (and even still from time to time), I felt overwhelmed. When I yelled at him for the first time, my heart broke in two. When he told me he hates me, it broke a little bit more. During the mess, the poopy-pants, the back-talk, the endless streams of Lego, Playmobil, dirt, noise, never-ending energy, laundry, a bottomless-pit stomach, I felt (and still feel) like I cannot possibly become more exhausted.

I daily see myself, for better and worse, reflected in his blue eyes. I see my tendency to fight, my bent toward selfishness, my quick and sharp tongue. I feel like I want to root all that out of him, not out of a godly sense of morality, but because I’m embarrassed that he is able, like none other, to reveal my sin. There is no hiding when I look into my boy’s eyes. The work God has done in me through this child has been brutal and refining.

So as not to focus on the worse, I also see my good qualities in him. A strong sense of justice, which I pray God will use to help my boy stand up for others. A fighting spirit, which I pray God will use to help him fight for Truth. A sharp mind, keen for details, that I hope my son will one day use to spread God’s word to others. A large, compassionate heart, that I already see beating inside of him, which I hope that one day God will use through him to reach out to those who most need it.

This is why I think boy moms are special: We are gifted with children whom we sometimes do not understand, and yet understand all too much at the same time. We are continually called, day by day, to lay our lives down for these little guys. To pray for them without ceasing, and in so doing, raising a generation of men who will be strong warriors for God’s truth.

It is a high and difficult calling, but I believe if God has brought us here, He will see us through.

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Laura is a wife, homeschooling mom to two boys and a girl, and an aspiring writer. She blogs at Contented Motherhood where she shares her heart as she journeys this wild ride of mothering. Laura lives on the eastern shore of Canada, enjoying the life she loves.

Throughout the month of November, we want to thank you, our faithful readers, for sticking by us as we worked through the rebuild of our site. In addition to giveaways, we are also thankful to our contributor, Franchesca Cox of Small Bird Studios, for providing free printables that we can share with you. Enjoy, and thank you for your support!