hannah and caroline and the little kumquat and me
(part five)
((the one where we found out the kumquat was a girl))


i meant it.

every time i said it.

every word.

of this post. every word.

every time someone made the comment "this one's going to be a boy.", "i know you are hoping for a boy.", "girls are terrible. you need a boy." or anything along those lines, it struck me as asinine in the same way i struck myself as asinine when i was emotionally and visibly shaken after caroline showed herself female.

why would it matter? why should it matter?

i have two living, breathing, beautiful examples of the blessings that are girls, that are daughters in my and sarah's life. in some ways, it would make more sense if i was not only not actively rooting for a boy, but i was, in fact, intensely rooting for a girl. after hannah and caroline, we know (as well as you can know anything i guess) how to "do" girls. we know how girls roll. we know how girls cry. we know how girls react to having their feelings hurt. we know how to hold them, how to scold them, and when to physically fold them in half after they've broken something else in the kitchen. as we age, in general, we all get better at any lot in life after we've known it, practiced it, grown comfortable with it, then mastered it. we aren't masters at having daughters, that's for sure, but we sure as hell are seven and a half years closer to it than we are at doing so with a son.

intellectually, it makes sense what i've been telling myself and other people. rooting for one sex over the other is ridiculous, foolish even. root for health. root for a gentle personality. root for them sleeping through the night the day you come home from the hospital. root for gender? absurd.

ultrasound tech: do y'all want to know the sex?

sarah said, "yes, we do." in that voice of hers that means, "uh, duh. of course we do". so the ultrasound tech started looking around. in that moment, my heart began to flutter. i held sarah's hand. and in spite of everything i said in the first few paragraphs of this post, i wanted "it's a boy." to be the announcement. badly.

i don't know why the want came out from wherever it was hiding. it was obviously always there. somewhere. i just didn't want to talk to it. to acknowledge it was there. because i had been told and told myself it was stupid.

then again, i am stupid (we all know this), so, you know, whatareyougonnado?

the story goes as the story went. we announced last week that we are having a girl. as we left the hospital, sarah could tell that i was all shook up, just like i was with caroline. i couldn't hide it. part of me didn't want to. part of me wanted to vomit it all out so i could get my disappointment out of my system, but a bigger part of me wanted to create as little deja vu to "the caroline incident" for sarah as i could. i did well in the hospital, less well in the elevator, worse still in the parking lot and i was outright rude on the phone from the car.

i am nothing if not predictable in times like those.

this time was different, because it felt like the last time. for something. for what?

for me to have a boy?

for us to have a son?

for our family to expand?

to anticipate that day like last thursday when we find out what "it" is?

i don't know. all of those. some of them.

it's painfully obvious that, over the course of my development and maturation, something was wired deep into my soul that made me think i really wanted a son. and dammit, come cancer or high water, that wasn't going to change.

does this personality flaw make my current daughters any less beautiful, engaging, or joyful? of course not. does this mean that i will be disappointed when the kumquat makes her appearance into this world sometime in october? not a chance.

in the end, i think it means or meant that i thought i would have a lot to offer a son on what it was like to be a boy. i thought i would have really felt proud and honored to give my son my brother's middle name. i thought that it would have been rather slick to call my boy by the same name as george clooney's character in from dusk 'til dawn. and you know what? that's pretty much the list. observing men in and around my life living vicariously through their children kind of makes me sick. what makes me more sick is how i know i would've been just like them.

with my girls, i want what's best for them and i'll always want them to reach their potential, but i have no ridiculous delusions of grandeur to apply to their futures because i haven't walked ahead of them along a path that i wish for them to emulate. that's a good thing for them.

my feelings last thursday in that dark, ultrasound room will never diminish the way i feel for them and care for them or will ever defend my daughters. in fact, the same animal, instinctual, reflexive emotions that i always wondered if i would attach to a son probably goes double for my girls. they won't need me forever, but they'll sure as hell have me.

i hope that's good enough.

while sarah and i were marveling at the surreal images of our growing baby, baby, baby girl moving inside of her belly, my emotions got the best of me...again. just another example of how, oftentimes, i am quite poor at managing my own expectations.

several days removed, though, my perspective has long since changed and the only frustration concerning the kumquat is her call sign or lack thereof. we'll figure that one out, too, soon enough. then, of course, we'll have another girl in our home in october.

and our lives will be better for it.