It's a Boy!!

My beautiful daughter-in-law is now 20 weeks pregnant.  The ultrasound two days ago showed a boy.  I had had a feeling, very early on in the pregnancy, that it was a girl.  You have a 50-50 chance when guessing gender, and I was wrong.  IT’S A BOY!

Having been a tomboy, I was relieved 27 years ago when I found out I was having a boy.  I would have had to learn a lot if I had had a “girly girl.”  Not that girls/women aren’t great, after all I am one (and I think a great one).  But I don’t relate to many little girl activities as well as I do playing with snakes, having reptile and rodent pets, building things in my dad’s wood shop, rough-housing, etc.  My sister played with dolls, I arranged them in my room, left them there, and then built doll houses for them.  I loved to design and make things, and when they didn’t turn out very well the first time, I just tried again. 

Having a boy child keeps mothers on their toes.  I remember going to a meeting when my son was just barely starting to “scoot” himself around.  Another child was there, about the same age as my son, but it was a girl.  The little girl’s mother spread out a blanket on the floor, and placed her girl in the middle with toys surrounding her.  She stayed within a few inches of where she was placed for the next hour and a half.  I spread out a blanket and placed my son on it with his toys surrounding him.  Within a few minutes, and every minute or so for the next hour and a half, I would be chasing him around the room and putting him back on his blanket.  He would not stay in one place.  The world was too exciting and needed to be explored.  I looked at the little girl, happily playing with her toys on her blanket, and thought “how would it be??”  Then I thought, “I wouldn’t trade for the world.”

Even in utero my son was an active child.  Practicing for the circus, I used to say.  The kicks to my liver, diaphragm, and spleen were enough to take my breath away.  Driving a car was very interesting when he let loose with one of those.  The kicks to my bladder made me know the location of every bathroom in the near vicinity, and I sometimes wouldn’t make it.  The night before he was born, it felt like he was banging his head against my pubic bone for hours.  I walked around the house, not knowing what he was doing inside me, only knowing that it was darned uncomfortable.  I went into labor the next morning and 6½ hours later he popped into the world, almost literally.  I had a “precipitous” 3^rd stage of labor, so the doctor, who had gone out for a short break, almost didn’t make it back into the room in time to catch him as he came out. 

My son learned to walk at a little over 9 months of age.  I like to say he only walked for a day, because after that he moved at a full tilt run.  What a challenge.  He figured out the baby safety locks for our kitchen cabinets almost immediately – the only person deterred by those locks was my mother-in-law, who repeatedly had problems with them. 

My son made it through to adulthood without any significant problems or addictions.  How lucky for all of us.  How fortunate for his wife.  And now they are having a boy….how wonderful.