By Nicole Piscopo Neal | Palm Beach Post

On the popular sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, two-time Emmy-winner Patricia Heaton plays Debra Barone, the wisecracking wife of a sportswriter, and "everymom" to her young brood.

The role is not such a stretch (although she says she's nicer than Debra and she really does like her in-laws). In real life, she's a wife and mom, and even grew up with a sportswriter in the family; her father, Chuck Heaton, covered the Browns for the Cleveland Plain-Dealer.

She's funny, too. Her autobiography, Motherhood & Hollywood, takes on life, love, marriage, child-rearing, show business, having parents, being a parent, spouse rage, fame, success and post-C-section/pre-plastic surgery stomach puffiness.

We played 20 Questions with Heaton, focusing on the most amazing factoid of all: She's a mom to four boys -- all under 8.

1. Four boys. Were you trying for the girl?

"On the third one, I was hoping it was going to be a girl. I had a fleeting moment of disappointment. When the fourth was a boy, I was glad. It would have been just too big of a change."

2.  Have you ever gone to the bathroom in your house and found the toilet seat down?

"No. Or flushed!"

3. What do you do to keep your marriage from becoming too much about the kids?

"It's a lost cause. I just tell my husband, 'Hang on, there's only about 10 years to go, and then I'll throw a glance your way.' That is the biggest problem. But we're going out tomorrow night, and we're all atwitter about what movie we're going to see." Like most couples with young children, Heaton says, they rely on "date nights." And being a celebrity is not too big of an issue when they do get to step out: "In L.A. people are just used to seeing that kind of thing."

4. What food do your kids eat way too much of?

"They're pretty good, but they have a huge ice cream sundae almost every night after dinner. They get to fix it up themselves." (She assuages guilt by insisting on a hard-core vegetable like broccoli every night, too.)

5. Cloth or disposable?

"Disposable. I tried cloth. You're kind of guilted into it."

6. What luxury, as a mom with money, are you most grateful to have?

"Space. We have a nice big house and a big backyard."

7. What luxury, if you had an average income, would you work a second job to keep?

She'd find a way to keep masseuses, chiropractors and facialists employed.

8. What chores do you still do where you stop and say, "Wait a minute. I'm a star. I'm not supposed to do stuff like this"?

"Laundry. We have laundry every day, but there's no one here on weekends, so I do it."

9. Did your kids potty train early or late?

"My pediatrician's wife said don't worry about it. Boys tend to train later, and a couple wet the bed for quite a while. So with boys I wouldn't worry about it until about 3 or 4." A recommendation: "theme underwear" to make the transition from diapers to big-boy undies more tempting.

10. If your kids inherit only one personality trait from you, what do you hope it is?

"Perseverance."

11. Are you the one the kids are a little scared of, or is it Dad?

"Dad. But basically we both stay on top of things. The only thing that works is follow through and immediate follow. You have to watch what you say, and you have to be willing to back it up. When I'm ready to go out the door, if they're not ready, they don't go."

12. What's the biggest advantage your kids have to your being a celebrity?

"It gives them a sense of pride. They understand what I do because they see the awards, and they're often around when people stop me. But I try to maintain a fairly normal life here (at home), and we're together in the evenings and on weekends."

13. What's the best child-rearing advice you ever received?

"Put them on a feeding schedule. I'm definitely in the camp of scheduled feedings as opposed to nursing on demand." The first son nursed for eight months, the second, seven. "Joe was weaned at four months, and poor Daniel got eight weeks." ("He was unplanned. That's the difference.")

14. Do your kids have chores? An allowance? Pagers or cellphones?

"No cellphones or anything. They're required to make their beds in the morning and clear the table and scrape their dishes and put them in the dishwasher. On Saturdays they're supposed to clean their bathroom." Their wages? $3 a week.

15. Did you try that whole Mozart-in-the-womb thing?

"Most people are all into that with the first kid. After that, it goes down the tubes. We started out getting all the mobiles that were black and white and were supposed to stimulate the kid and blah blah blah blah blah. It's probably better not to have so much stimulation! Parents should just enjoy the first time; after that, it's not as big of a deal."

16. Did you have post-partum?

"With the first one I was more weepy, but I think I was just really tired and everything was overwhelming. But I didn't have any real post-partum."

17. Do you get along with your in-laws in real life?

"Yeah, my mother-in-law was here for all of the births."

18. You recently did a milk ad with your stepmom. If you could say only one thing to her now, what would it be? (Heaton's mom died of a brain aneurysm when Heaton was 12; her father remarried when she was in high school.)

There's a 20-year age difference between her father and her stepmother, Cece, she said, so Cece is being required to deal with her father's issues of aging. "I would tell her what a great job I think she does being with him and that we appreciate her so much for what she's done and what she's doing."

19. How maternal do you feel toward your three on-screen children?

"I just adore those kids. I love them. But I was never a kid or animal person before I had children. The minute I had my first son, I just wanted to commune with all living things. I now 'get' little kids."

20. How are you different from Debra?

"I'm not as mean as she is. I used to be. I've mellowed out a bit in the 12 years we've been married. They're [Ray and Debra] little more combative, but that's where the comedy comes in. It wouldn't be funny if they got along all the time."