Monday, March 05, 2007

Frogs, Snails, and Puppy-Dog Tails

We found out last Friday that we're going to have a boy. I guess that I'm supposed to be jumping for joy over this. After all, what man doesn't want a son to carry on the family name?

I have to admit that I was a little disappointed at the news. I'm kind of used to Lily and all the girl stuff. Plus, if we had a girl we could have them stay in the same room and we would still have our guest room. I guess that's not the best reason to prefer a certain gender over another though.

But what I really think is that I hadn't considered all the possibilities. Amanda has talked about getting a crib set from a friend. She asked me if I thought it would be OK and I only semi-jokingly asked, "Is it going to clash with the Cleveland Indians nursery?" She then told me that we could do a baseball theme in the nursery if I wanted. Now the wheels are turning...

I think that my real fear is that I will favor one child over the other. I really enjoy my time with Lily and she and I have our things that we do together. We run errands together, particularly the groceries. We play Lego Star Wars together and that is something that Amanda really couldn't care less about, though she thinks that the game may be a bit too violent for Lily's young eyes. We have our stuff and I'm afraid that my son will get in the way of some of that.

On the other hand, maybe this will be good when Lily gets into her adolescent years when she doesn't have much room for mommy or daddy. Our son will be 8 when she is 12 (Lord willing) and that will be a good time for sports, etc.

Anyhow, it's all still a bit jumbled in my mind. I am looking forward to a son. There are lots of guy things that I'm looking forward to doing with him, including sports. But I also want to make sure that I save room for Lily as well. It's going to be interesting to switch between "girl mode" and "boy mode", but I know that if I can context-switch that quickly at work I should be able to with my children.

Writing this has been good. I think that it's starting to sink in...

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