Gender discovered--It's a boy!

I hadn't thought I had any preference, boy or girl, until the moment we found it he was a boy--then I felt a twinge of disappointment. The girls were hoping to even out the numbers a bit, so maybe I was disappointed for them. "There are too many boys!" Mariah insisted that night, when we were all together in the kitchen. "Who should we get rid of?" I asked her, hoping that the question would cause her to reflect that we couldn't spare anyone. She, however, started naming off her brothers one by one, as they took turns looking offended. I told her that Sadie, Mom and she would have to stick together, with all those boys in the house.

The boys are pleased. "Score!" was Macon's text in response to the good news.

This business of being able to find out the gender ahead of time is a beautiful use of modern technology. What an amazing window into what was not before seen--we know the baby has all his tiny parts--a perfectly formed little person, whose job is to gain another seven or eight pounds and perfect some of those less developed and currently unneeded organs like his lungs. We know that he is a boy, which tells us a great deal about him--he will need to be taught to provide, protect, and preside in his home.

I had one very sobering response to my jubilant "It's a boy!" annunciation text (although in this case, I had texted "Es niño!") A friend responded in her own language: "What a great blessing to have a boy! It is better, because the women in this world work harder and suffer more than the men!" This lady has had some cause to feel this way, because the men in her life had not often been what they should have been. It should not be like that--men and women are made to share the burdens of work and of sorrow, as well as the joys. It makes me determined that my sons should be taught to work hard, and be honorable and faithful husbands and fathers. That is what will give them and their families the most happiness--now and later.

Moaning Myrtle

I've always been quite sentimental. Emotions created by books, movies, church meetings, and Maxwell House commercials quickly well up into tears, and I have had to master the art of crying silently to myself in order to avoid detection. When I'm pregnant, the sentimentalism moves into the realm of the ridiculous. This morning as I read the movie review for the newest Potter installment, I was moved to tears in anticipation of being sad during the actual film! When I was pregnant with Noah, and the final installment of the new Star Wars movies came out, I was humiliated to find I was crying as Anakin strangled Padme! Anakin and Padme, for crying out loud? Nobody cared about that romance, least of all me. And I confess I wept when the animated lightning bug from "The Princess and the Frog" was squashed by the bad guy. I wasn't pregnant that time.

I was sobbing over the morning paper the other day, glad that everyone was off at work and school and unable to see the spectacle of the matriarch of the family weeping big tears of sympathy over a man who had lost his wife two years hence. He deserved those tears of course, much more than George Lucas and Disney did, and more than JK Rowling will, when I shed tears in the theater tonight for Harry Potter and his friends. I think I might be more happy about all this weeping if it were more logical--if I wept only when something was truly sad, or truly beautiful, and not because I have allowed my emotions to be manipulated by Hollywood or an instant coffee marketing campaign.

I'll work on being more choosy about where and when I dissolve into a flood of tears. In the meantime, however, I count at least five fictional characters who will meet their demise tonight. I'm bringing plenty of tissues.

When did my nice children get to be teenagers?

I kicked the two answering to that description out of bed at the crack of 10:40 and made them do some chores. They didn't complain too much (they had complained plenty the day before, so they were out of new excuses, I guess), however, they did fill my house with thumping bass and that talking pseudo-rap that passes as a melody line these days. Matt wants to know if our music sounded this bad to our parents. Maybe if it weren't cranked up to "11," I could stand to listen to it.

I used to put on my own music when it was time to motivate the children to do chores. Now he who puts on the music generally follows a might-makes-right pecking order. Noah started working on his chores first, so he popped in a Primary CD and picked up Legos to "Called to Serve" ("I like to work to the 'forward, pressing forward' part," he told me. Now, isn't that a nice boy? One day, he too will be fourteen.) Seth entered the room after eating his pancakes and bullied Noah into letting him put on a CD of his own, and then before I know it, Macon has started his chores, has hooked his itunes up to speakers and is blasting Offspring through the house. Six foot seven wins the music battle, every time.

As for the pregnancy update, the belly begins to catch up to the backside, and 2nd tri energy is keeping me going. The major downside for the whole condition is the short fuse, especially where tantrums are concerned. Is it not common knowledge that five-years-old is too old for an aisle-shaking fit at Walmart?? I have sworn not to take the child back there until she turns six. And she got no potato chips, either. Urk.