"IT'S A ---- !!!"
Me: Ok, last chance. Mummy’s going to the doctor while you’re at school today. Boy or girl?
Rockstar: Boy!
Me: Why?
Rockstar: Because I talk to boys better! Because I enjoy being a boy!
After school/ gynea trip…
Me: So Rockstar, ready to know if it’s a boy or a girl?
Rockstar: I have to pee.
Me: Ok, ready now? <Thinking: quick tell him, before he can tell me he wants a boy> We’re having a girl.
Rockstar: <Not unpleasantly surprised> Oh! I thought it was a boy. It’s really not a boy? (Classmates) also said boy… <thinking> Actually no, they said boy and girl.
Me: Well probably because they didn’t want to be wrong. If they guess both they’ve got to be half right. Mummy’s got to be having either a boy or a girl.
Rockstar: What am I going to say to a girl? I don’t know what to talk about to girls.
Me: That’s ok darling, your father doesn’t either, but I married him anyway. You’ve got girl friends in school you play with every day.
Rockstar: Oh yeah. But I like being a boy <like he’s feeling sorry for the baby having to be a girl>
Me: The baby might like being a girl. Your girl friends like being girls, don’t they? <Rockstar looks dubious – apparently how can anyone like being a girl when they could be a boy> And now all your friends have something different, including you – you’re the only one with a baby sister (of his good friends), aren’t you?
Rockstar: (One of his best friends) has a baby brother. (Another best friend) has an older sister. Oh – but (girl classmate) has a baby sister. Well two, actually – twins.
Me: Wow, that many girls?
Rockstar: <shaking his head with What Does One Do With So Many Girls expression> Ye-eah! Cra-zy!
Me: You going to tell your friends tomorrow at school?
Rockstar: Yeah! We’re having a girl!
Me: You could ask them what they know about baby girls. And any suggestions how to talk to them.
Rockstar: <gravely, accentuated by pointy index figure and frown-y expression> I-have-to-protect-the-baby-from-naughty-people-pushing!
(Because he’s forever conscious of being tiny and one of the younger kids in school… Though I wouldn’t rule out him frothing at the mouth if the baby touches some of his stuff. He and the dog bicker all the time… And he says snobby things like, “I have nothing to say to K1s.”)
Rockstar: <still with superhero expression> Mum. Can I have a bunk bed?
Me: <?? thinking: How did we start talking about bunk beds> Why?
Rockstar: Because taking care of a baby can make me tired. I don’t want to do it all the time. Sometimes I need to hide and do my own things.
**Update: Quick as a flash, I followed CA’s advice (comments) about Charlie and Lola… To this result:
Me: Hey! I just remembered! You wanted to be like Charlie and Lola with the baby, remember?
Rockstar: Oh yeah! Can we name the baby Lola?
Me: Umm… But your name isn’t Charlie anyway.
Rockstar: <without skipping a beat> Yeah. Can we change it to Charlie?
Uh…. I walked right into that one.
———————————————————————————————
Well so maybe there’s something to old wives’ tales from the “girl” guesses in this post. “You were fairly sure it was a girl, weren’t you?” I accuse my gynea, because looking back at our conversations she did seem to be expecting a girl… Come to think of it everyone except Rockstar was expecting a girl. To which she replies that from my account (which I agree with), the giveaway was this pregnancy felt so very different from Rockstar’s…
“I wouldn’t say ‘sure’… Some women want one or the other so badly they fool themselves when observing the symptoms…” Which was probably why she kept asking me if I had a preference. I really don’t. I’m just dying to know, kind of like if you flip a coin and go “Boy – I shall raise him thus; Girl – I shall raise her thus…” and not being able to think that far for not knowing what we’re getting drives me nuts.
“What about when people say second pregnancy is always different from the first?” this was my Mum’s.
“Every woman is different. But if there’s a big difference in symptoms from one pregnancy to the next it does imply you’re carrying something quite different…”
Well can’t argue with that. The morning sickness is easing, but I dream all the time. The most bizarre dreams like I’m high on something (wasn’t Yellow Submarine allegedly written when the Beatles were high?), several every night, and I wake often. With Rockstar, I just slept like a log. And fought with Legal & Compliance at work.
Now, what am I going to call Baby Girl Rockstar?
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