Boy or Girl?

So, I am going to find out what brand my baby is this month. I am pretty much dancing on rainbows at the thought of knowing this little wiggly peanut a bit more. I already bought a girl and a boy outfit for brand-new baby McKinnon. This is much to the chagrin of my husband who doesn't see the point in buying clothes that for certain will not be worn since the baby can only be a boy OR a girl and not both. But, I say, who's to say our little boy nugget might not want to wear a frilly pink Packer onesie? Or our little girl dumpling doesn't want to butch it up in some brown corduroy? Alright, I just wanted to buy some damn clothes!

But the more and more I contemplate my future child's sex, the more confused I get. I get asked all the time what I want and my husband forebode me from giving the cliche oh-I-don't-care-as-long-as-it's-healthy-response. Like, someone somewhere wished for a girl and just because she did that baby was born in an iron lung? Where did that phrase even come from? Of course every mother wants a healthy baby. But I honestly am scared to find out what I'm baking in this oven. I feel like if I get a boy then I don't get ribbons and curls and if I get a girl I don't get a momma's boy that lives in my basement until he's 56. How can one choose?

But then I start to think of the cons of these sexes, specifically based on examples from my family. Like when I think boy, I immediately imagine a little 10-pound linebacker like my brother who cut three-foot holes in brand-new furniture with my dad's jackknife. Or who made my mom cry because he wouldn't sit down long enough to learn that A came before B with the Hooked on Phonics kit my mom ordered off QVC out of pure desperation. It's almost like I can see these genes in my bloodstream headed towards my womb and I tremble in terror. But then I look at pictures of my husband as a little boy and my heart melts. I see the biggest, happiest grin paired with giant brown eyes and imagine a whole tribe of those little boys sitting cross-legged in front of the Christmas tree patiently waiting for story time from Papa as a giant log crackles on the fire.

Then I think about what adorable blond-haired blue eyed princesses (like myself) turn into around age 12. I remember the pure frustration my mom had in her eyes every time she and I conversed as a teen. I remember screaming the second I got off the school bus and crying myself to sleep quite often. Why? Who the hell knows? Teenage girls are seriously evil. But as a child I was quite the catch. I was smart, polite, cute and never got in trouble. But it was almost like the minute the clock ticked 12 years old, I was transformed into a monster. It was like I had been doomed since birth by a wicked witch because my mom didn't stay in her tower weaving on a golden harp all day. Consider me the next Sleeping Beauty.

And those of you who think I should "just wait until the big day and be surprised," really don't know me at all. I'm the one who couldn't wait for my husband to propose and made him do it two weeks early with a gun to his head. OK, no gun but everything else is true. I'm the girl who requests every single birthday/Christmas present to ensure I have the right surprise/grateful face upon opening it. I don't like surprises, well, actually, I don't like anticipation and that goes hand-in-hand with surprises.

So, really, I don't care what I have because the second I think I want a girl I get sad about not having a boy and vice verse. Maybe, they didn't see a second little biscuit in there during my first ultrasound and I really will get both? A girl can dream, can't she?