Day: March 14, 2010

**found this on in draft from march 13th… unedited.**

If there’s one reason that I think this baby might be a girl, it’s because she’ll hold my hand.

We’re to that gestational age where body parts are quite distinctive and I’m pretty sure that this one, like her mama, talks with her hands. I’m also able to manipulate the parts of my belly which will cause a small nub to protrude and so tickle my insides as to make me reconsider what I had for lunch. But often times during the day, if I lay my hand to rest on the midsection, a small part will round the corner to find the palm of my hand.

Being Mommy to a girl, I think, would be quite different. A friend from church today was talking about how her 2-year-old wanted her hair straight-ironed to be “pretty like mommy.” I hope I didn’t insult her when I said that I was secretly hoping a little more for this one to be a boy again. That kind of stuff, mostly because I only know life as Boy Mommy, is like a foreign planet.

But on the other hand, I have some hopes of experiencing life with another (human) being in the house with a feminine side. Don’t get me wrong, I think my Henry Boy is very attuned to emotion and how others around him feel; but the emotional senses of a girl (and, granted, the emotional outbursts as well) round out the human experience. If I enjoy holding hands while she’s in utero, I can only imagine the delight when she desires to hold my hand in person.

Because I think that girls have this depth of feeling, I’m also secretly hoping that she’ll teach me a bit of the way of feeling as well. As we teach children about emotion – what we feel, how we express it, how to handle it, how to share it with others – I think we learn a bit about it ourselves. Husband has told me multiple times how I need to toughen up to be a Boy Mama because things are going to get broken. The week that H took 3 conks to the head was a good introduction, but I’ve got a long ways to go before football 3-a-days.

I think Husband will also have to tell me that I’ll need to soften a bit to be a good Girl Mama. He’s so good in dealing with me that I’m sure he’ll be able to provide some tips, but there is a way of loving a little lady that encourages her even as she is discouraged, upset or outright blazing mad that is a learned skill. I don’t have it.

So that’s my hope. I suppose even if I end up with all boys the sensitive, loving trait can be learned. And I will certainly relish the teenage years that I’m not dealing with other people’s catty daughters and what they said about mine. So either way, I’m hoping that, with each child I’ll learn a little bit more about what it means to love fully.

This blog (if I were more postmodern, I’d refer to it as my “space”), is one of my favorite things to do. I won’t lie. Lots of people put off their hobbies as “oh it’s nothing.” But, no, not really. I look forward to the times when conversing with someone and a thought creeps in, so that I feel “I’m going to have to blog about that.” It feeds into my fb account and I’ve had a few people who have complemented me on some of my posts. It makes me happy to know that someone felt some sort of satisfaction after reading (as opposed to “well, that’s 10 minutes I’ll never get back”). It’s a personal accomplishment that I once wrote prose about a lasagna and got over 10 comments on it.

It’s a dream that someday I can spend my time and energies reading interesting things and talking to interesting people so that I can somehow tell their stories and have people enjoy them. Part of the satisfaction comes from completing the piece itself. Another part comes from knowing that someone else (preferably multiple someones) experiences a benefit as well. Win win. Win.

So you can imagine my disappointment when I learned that I’m not the natural writer-type.

I just started Anne Lamott’s book Bird by Bird // Instructions on writing and life, and she goes on about the different writers with whom she has interacted. How they love poetry and see the world differently and have these artsy quirks. I am not one of these people. I love to read, but the classics aren’t where I spend my time. I like pretty things, but art and sculpture and even nature sometimes loom above my head. And I just don’t like poetry. Never have.

I’m not artsy. Last week I attempted to create personalized stationary and there were tears. The stationary required only one piece of clipart (ganked from google images) and 3 text boxes. All the same font. I can’t sew my own curtains, crochet my own hats or even accessorize my own wardrobe. I’ve been wearing the same earrings since 1999. And painting? JJ won’t even let me at the walls with a single color and a roller. Who am I kidding?! I couldn’t even pick out the paint COLOR on my own!

I have a few slight quirks. I like to eat the broken tortilla chips. My favorite aisle in Target is the office supplies section. And nothing excites me more than filling in a new calendar or planner. But, unlike the artsy brilliant types, this doesn’t give me opportunity to see the world in a different way. I don’t have a different perspective. I’m just exceptionally organized and inflexible.

So unlike the hero in many stories who finds out that he’s “different” and spends his life attempting to assimilate and hide his inconsistencies, I had the exact opposite downer day. I’m realizing how insanely normal I am. Well, at least I’m a bit odd in my dissatisfaction with my normalness.