lives in South Philadelphia

Max of Where the Wild Things Are has his wolf suit. My 3-year-old son has his SpongeBob PJs, Superman cape, and fireman's hat. Like the boy from Maurice Sendak's imagination, my son does tempt me to call him "Wild Thing," whether he's jumping on the couch or crushing his brother's block tower.

Until I became the mother of two sons, I was clueless about the gregarious nature of boys. I used to think that "boys being boys" was a stereotype, or that parents were allowing their boys to play rough and act tough. Wrong.

In playgroups with children as young as 1 year old, the difference in the way boys and girls play with toys and friends, the way they act silly and act out, became crystal clear to me. Not "all" boys behave one way, and "all" girls another. But play and behavior are not gender-neutral. Science bears this out.

"Boys are prenatally wired up for higher activity levels and rough-and-tumble play," Lise Eliot told Salon magazine. Eliot is a neuroscientist, mother of three, and author of Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow Into Troublesome Gaps - and What We Can Do About It. "It's something that we may need to be more tolerant and accepting of with young boys. You learn a lot through this kind of play."

So a wad of Play-Doh inspires a game of catch. A bed turns into a trampoline. Wrestling on the floor? De rigueur. So "snakes and snails and puppy dog tails" isn't the half of it. Boys, too, are squished bugs, rusty bottle caps, and muddy cleats. In his film adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are, director Spike Jonze shows that boys are also about building forts and telling tall tales, and just wanting to be loved for all their boyish sweetness and toughness, pride and fear, magic and truth.

For me, being the mother of boys means pitching my imperfect pitches and darning those terrible holes. It's being able to wrap my arms around a boy who will someday be taller than I am. It's giving my son a peck on the lips that soon will be sweet to someone else. It's reading together in a tangle of legs and arms strengthened by baseball and tag and kickball.

At the end of the film, Max's mother gazes across the table at him with an expression that is half-wonder, half-understanding. When my sons sit still long enough for me to really look into their eyes, I find myself asking silently: "My darling boys, who are you? Who will you be?" Like Max, they dig into their dinner, which is still hot, and don't give anything away.