a premonition?

**found this one 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.