March 19, 2009
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dogs are boys; cats are girls
Sometime in the past week or two, The Fetus (aka Mantis, aka Grain, aka Avocado Dog, aka Fur Ball, aka Squid) grew itself some life-changing bits betwixt its little fetal legs. Little does Fetus know, its blissful gender-free days are numbered. Soon, it will enter the world of pink and blue presumption, a world of unjust category.
Fetus, soon the world will have a million ways of telling you that you are exclusively smart or beautiful; dangerous or in danger; critical or irrelevant. I will tell you that you are capable of all of it; you will surprise yourself in good and bad and beautiful ways in this life. Your dad will tell you that you are everything all at once, all mashed together; the trick is knowing what part of yourself to use when. I hope you listen to us: I suspect we are happier than most people. We want you to find living as fun as we do.
Also: I’ve enjoyed our time together when you couldn’t give a crap what gender you were. You were too busy with important things, like forming your skeleton and making eyes. I want you always to be able to abandon your gender like that, with the same dedicated intensity. Because there will always, always something more important to think about.
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Tomorrow we have our doctor’s appointment and the ultrasound will tell us if the Fetus is a he or she. We both are really excited to find out. Neither Shaun nor I has a “feeling” about what it is and neither of us can stand the thought of someone (the doctor) knowing something we don’t. So we want to find out. We have no preference, although hermaphrodite presents a few additional challenges in life.
I think that finding out will really help me visualize us as parents. Because things are so fuzzy now, so obscure. I can’t quite believe it and I’m not sure what it looks like at all.
Someone asked a few weeks ago, “do you have kids?” And I shot back with an automatic, “Naw! Me?” Before I remembered that, well, soon enough I will have someone with shared genetics to love and take care of. I know that finding out the sex of the fetus isn’t going to beam a magic vision into my head, but perhaps replacing “it” with a “he” or “she” will get me on the right track.
Comments (7)
I have thought “he”since you had Zorak pictured. This would be perfect for a contest!
Oh Yay! I’m excited for you guys. Will you share when you find out? I love the first part of this post. I suspect you are happier than most people as well. Lucky Grain
At the very least, this can help with decorating plans. Unless you’ve already gone with purple or orange or green. The good thing is that it’s a no-lose situation, and you’ll love him/her either way.
Ooh that’s so exciting.
Another person i know doesn’t want to know the sex. He says he wants to be surprised. I say surprise is overrated.
I’m thinking ‘she’ since I associate ‘she’ with grain for some reason.
I always think it’s funny how some parents can get super anxious about fitting their kids in neat little blue or pink boxes. Like my cousin– She has a daughter who, for the first couple years of her life, people thought was a boy because she had no hair. My cousin would freak out and over compensate by dressing the kid in all this cutesy girly stuff. The kid still gets bombarded with princessy toys and things, even though I can tell she’s a tomboy at heart. I hope that as she gets older, her mother will let her be the kind of person she wants to be. Looks like your kid is going to be lucky. S/he is going to be loved regardless.
@TimsHead - Mantis will inherit Shaun’s office, which I just painted a soft green color this summer (the color is called “sprout!”). No sense in painting it again, seeing as how infants can only see in grayscale anyhow.