Date published: 5/14/2006

By MICHAEL MCLEODTHE ORLANDO SENTINEL

Four years ago, Dallas homemaker Linda Marie Ford was sitting at the dinner table with her husband and her three children, all males, when one of the boys belched so loudly that the boy next to him laughed so hard that milk came out of his nose.

It was inspiring. It inspired Ford, 41, to invent a Web site.

The site, itsgoodtobethequeen .com, is devoted to women whose offspring are all male.

"There's a lot of pressure when you're the only one in the household with an estrogen supply."

The site has 2,500 members, who log on to read a weekly message from Ford and share stories about living in households preoccupied with video games and bodily functions.

One member recently posed this question: "What would you do if your boy came home with a hole in his body that wasn't there when he left the house?"

Another member offered: "You could tell him what my mother-in-law told my husband on the occasion of his most recent tattoo: 'If I knew you were going to grow up and do THIS to your body, I wouldn't have worried about diaper rash so much'"

Ford, who refers to all of her members as "queens," got the idea for the Web site's regal theme when one of her sons, steeped in chivalrous language after reading "The Chronicles of Narnia," began answering any request she made by saying: "I hear and obey, my queen."

She liked the sound of it enough to go out and buy herself a tiara.

"I think mothers with all boys deserve a little pampering."

The Web site is a frequent stop for Erin Burtoft, 36, whose three children are all boys: Alex, 13, Jason, 9, and Bryan, 3.

"You get sucked into their world without even knowing it," she says. "The other day, in traffic, I found myself staring at a pickup, thinking, 'Hey, nice truck.' I need a place to go where I don't feel weird admitting that I spend an awful lot of my time explaining things like: 'Golf is not a game that you play inside the house.'"

Though the Web site helps, there are other ways of seeking refuge from testosterone territory, says Burtoft.

"If there's a just-girls lunch, I'm there," she says.

Date published: 5/14/2006