Sugar and spice and everything nice...

I am standing in a circle with my parents, inlaws, and closest friends.  I have a pink handkerchief tied onto my ponytail and I am exhaling deeply into a pink balloon.  As the balloon fills with my first enthusiastic breath, it quickly reveals that it has been previously assaulted by pinpricks and it becomes immediately apparent that the balloon will not hold air.  

The disappointment and surprise sort of bubble up in the deepest part of my gut, but I do *not* allow those emotions to register on my face.  

To my left, my husband is blowing ferociously into a blue balloon, which is happily accepting his efforts and obediently staying inflated.  

The verdict was in.  We were having a boy.  For the second time.

 

You see, I had been *certain* the growing child in my belly was a girl.  I can't say why, exactly -- or when that certainty sprang into existence -- but it was there.  In recent weeks, I had found myself gazing at mothers with little girls and standing a bit too long in front of infant-sized dresses in the baby section at Target.

Regardless of what my gut is feeling, I slap a giant smile on my face and celebrate with hugs and high fives like my uterus has just won the world series of pregnancies. 

Looking back at that moment, I think It's very possible that the main source of my disappointment was my very extreme and innate competitive spirit. Also, it could have had something to do with a bruised ego.  Losing just doesn't sit well with me, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna lose at a guessing game I both created and insisted upon. Now, it looks like I will also spend the next 18 years losing the age-old toilet seat battle, not to mention any pissing contests that might arise. 

The really funny thing is that the thought of raising a girl really sort of terrifies me.  For starters, I hate pink. I always have. You see, I was not only the first born (and only) daughter to my parents, I was also the first granddaughter on both sides, following at the heels of five boy cousins on my dad's side.  From the day I was born, I was *inundated* with pink, and bows, and dresses, and everything deemed domestic and female.  

So, from an early age, I did the most natural thing and I rebelled.  I was once overheard telling a friend just before Christmas that I was pretty sure Santa would award my good behavior that year with 'another dumb kitchen set'.  Even as a young adult and all us 'kids' were living away from home, I raised a stink the year both my brothers received tool sets and I did not.  What? I was never going to need an Allen wrench because I had a vagina??   Incidentally, I got an identical tool set for my birthday that year and have even used it once or twice since then.

While my brothers were winning chess matches and scholastic bowls and quietly learning to program computers (before it was even fashionable), I was sweating through t-shirts on the volleyball and basketball courts.  I threw tantrums over wearing dresses my mother had hand-made for me and blinked back tears every morning when she combed out the mess of tangles my long hair had acquired from climbing trees, riding bikes, and diving into deep ends of pools.   

When I graduated college, my mother (perhaps in one last effort to domesticate me) bought me a sewing machine.  Instead of telling her how insulted I felt, I graciously packed it up and lugged it around the country with me throughout graduate school and clinical rotations.  Years later, I had the occasion to do some light sewing and after nearly an hour trying to thread the damn thing, I gave up and stapled my project together.

My wedding dress has a ring of dirt at the hemline and sweat stains under the armpits; what I consider to be a lovely memento of a blissed-out bride fearlessly traipsing through tall grass for photos and dancing like a crazy person all night.  

To this day, no one had ever accused me of being either dainty or feminine.  I have man-sized arms, hands, and feet.  I wear my husband's sweat pants to the grocery store.  It's been so long since I've worn makeup, I have actually *lost* my tiny makeup bag. 

So, you can see I wouldn't be much of a mom to a little girl.  Maybe my lady parts had figured that out long before I did.  

My boys will be 17 months apart.  God willing, they will be happy and healthy like I was.  And I'm sure I will find some manner in which to unintentionally insult them with Christmas and graduation presents and they will find ways to boldly rebel against my expectations for them.