We're Having A . . .

I'll give you three guesses as to the gender of the baby. 

But I bet you won't need that many.

The ultrasound was pretty definitive.  Like she was showing off, or so the technician said.  I guess that’s trustworthy enough for me to be able to go ahead and clear the boy stuff out of my garage.  Kind of sad, though, to know it will never be worn by one of my kids ever again.  Funny how attached we can become to articles of clothing.  I suppose it’s because looking at them brings back a flood of memories from when they were worn.

I was hoping for a boy for the sake of Shaggy and J.  Shaggy’s the one that’s the most disappointed.  I think he’s struggling to come to terms with the fact that he will ever only have one son.  He keeps jokingly asking me,  “Why couldn’t you bring me another man-child?”  And I, ever so sweetly remind him that Daddies determine the gender.  And that he had FOUR chances to have a second boy.  I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.

As for myself, I’m not really disappointed.  In my experience, girls have been a whole lot easier to handle.  And the idea of one last baby girl just makes me smile.

When I told J the doctor said the baby was a girl, he expressed his disappointment by scowling and saying,  “But I wanted it to be a baby boy!”  His disappointment was fairly short-lived, however, since he is now totally fine with the idea of ANOTHER sister.

He likes to talk to my belly button--to say hi to the baby.  And he thinks it’s hilarious that the baby is punching and kicking me.  Maybe he’s just incredulous that I’m actually ok with that.  Not much that I can do about it, though, is there?

R is getting used to the idea of a new baby joining our family.  She likes to talk about it, about how she’s going to hold it and hug it.  And about how she has a baby in her belly, too.  Looking back, J thought the same thing when I was pregnant with R.  And back then, there was NOTHING I could say to convince him otherwise.  He must have given up on the idea, though, when nothing ever came of it.

Nowadays, he’s familiar with the idea that some day he’ll grow up, get married , and have kids of his own.  The other day he was talking about how he was going to be a Dad someday, and he would have rules for his kids.  The following is a list, word for word, of what he told me.

 1.  No climbing on my lap . . . ever. (He was sitting on my lap as he dictated these
       rules.)
 2.  Be nice to everybody.
 3.  No messing up your mom’s flowers.
 4.  Don’t break your mom’s best pot that’s made out of glass.
 5.  Don’t go up to the snow and get a hard snowball and throw it at your eye.
 6.  Always love your Mommy.
 7.  Always share.
 8.  Just throw snow at their pants or boots or something.
 9.  Don’t punch a glass door open by purpose.
10.  Don’t touch your friend’s toys unless he says so, but no breaking them.
11.  Don’t throw your food--just eat it.
12.  Don’t punch your sister in the face when she’s asleep.
13.  Don’t wrestle with newborn babies.
14.  Be gentle with them.  Just be soft.

Seems like a fairly solid set of rules to me.  I especially like #6.  Though I would maybe move it to #1.  But that’s just me.

I am happy to say that with the exception of #4, and maybe #s 7 and 11, J has done a pretty good job of following these rules.  And I think that #s 13 and 14 will be a bit of a lifesaver come August when we’ll have a newborn in the house.

And hopefully, J will continue to follow rule #12, even though he will be surrounded by FOUR sisters!