Project Baby and Guest Blogger Week: Stepper!

Much as I promised this wouldn't turn into a Mormon Mommy Blog, it turns out that being pregnant makes you think about things like babies and motherhood quite a lot. It seems that tiny little feet pounding on your bladder will do that to you.

In the weeks since my last Project Baby post when we found out that we're having a boy, I've spent a lot of time thinking about what that means for me, for us and for our little family. It's amazing how different it feels to go from "we're having a baby" to "we're having a son". And I'm honestly very, very excited because little boys are amazing!

For this weeks blog project, I asked some friends and fellow bloggers who just also happen to be the mothers of sons to share some of their thoughts on the raising of boys and the having of sons.

First up is Stepper, who seems to be becoming something of a celebrity on my blog. If you don't believe me (and you're not using Google Reader), look to the bar on the right at my current featured blog. Don't be shy about leaving her a comment here, or about clicking over to her own blog. I'm sure you'll like her as much as I do.



Boys by Stepper

When I walked trustingly into the ultrasound office the summer of 2007, I was sure I was having a girl. I had flipped back and forth during my whole pregnancy thus far, saying things like, “it appears he is not a fan of tuna fish – please go eat your sandwich in some dark corner away from me.” and “she is doing the kitchen dance in there!” But a few weeks before U-day, my mind and (surely!) my Mother’s Intuition had settled on a girl. I should be able to intuitively know what sort of person inhabited my space with me – and this person was decidedly female.

We even had her name picked out.

So when I caught a glimpse of what would prove me wrong as the ultrasound technician moved her cold black rolly-stick over my bump to discover all fingers and toes, I didn’t believe it. Those grainy pictures are squidgy at best, anyway. What I saw could have been anything! A bunched umbilical. A third leg! But not that.

“Do you want to know the sex?” asked the technician.

We nodded.

The cold black rolly-stick moved back into position. That was no third leg. “Well!” said the technician as she digitally circled the proof and typed “it’s a boy!” in tiny white letters across the screen, “he certainly isn’t shy!”

(she had no idea)

For a flash of a second, I was consumed with disappointment. What about the daughter that I was so certain I had been talking to all this time? What happened to her when this interloping boy had taken her place? Boys were a complete mystery to me. I had three sisters – no brothers. My poor dad had to resort to buying a huge and flashing fire truck to donate to charity at Christmas time. Little boys were inscrutable with their obsession with trucks, balls, and bandaged knees; teenage boys had completely baffled me (why on earth would anyone think that burping the alphabet was funny?); adult men were intriguing and mysterious, but still beyond me. How the heck was I supposed to change one’s diaper, let alone raise one to adulthood?

I looked at Bill – the one male on this planet that I did understand. His eyes were wide and wet, staring at that monitor, and his mouth barely formed the whispered words, “it’s a boy.”

Our eyes met, and my brief flash of doubt completely dissolved into something else. Something I’d never felt before. Something strong. I was swept away with it.

I was having a boy. A son. My son. And suddenly, I had never wanted anything else. I had never wanted anything so desperately than I wanted this boy in my arms, in my life.

“You’re having a son!” I blubbered to Bill. He pressed his sleeve cuffs against his eyes and grinned.

“You too,” he said.

The ultrasound technician tried to move on and explain all the other parts we were seeing. We listened and appreciated and ooh’d and ahh’d at how cute his tiny little features were – and they were. Seriously. Adorable. My little man.

But in my head, I was already five months from then. Sitting in the rocking chair Bill had just bought for me – for us! My little man and I – with this child in my arms, knowing him and loving him and watching him grow to be a man the caliber of his father.

I think I may have interrupted the ultrasound technician when I suddenly blurted to Bill, “You’ll have to change his diapers; I don’t know how!”

Bill just laughed.

I’d learn.

This boy thing – I’d learn.

Wyatt is almost two years old, now – and I’m still learning, every day, why being the mother of a boy is the absolute best thing in the entire world. I had no idea boys were so much fun.

One evening while kneeling next to the tub giving Wyatt a bath, I looked up at Bill who was watching the fun. “I want boys. Lots of boys. I want a whole house FULL of sons!” And I meant it! Girls were probably great, too – but boys? I had irrefutable proof that boys were divine.

A whole house full of them, please.

Now Wyatt is about to become a big brother. To a girl. Her little protector. And I’m looking forward to learning how girls are the absolute best thing in the entire world. Because I know she will also be irrefutably divine. And she will make me want a slew of daughters to give baths to, also.

But I still plan on that house full of boys.