I envy people with good children like I envy the obscenely rich and their crack-addict washboard abs. That is to say that, I would probably smoke crack (do you smoke it?) if it meant I could have abs like the stars. Which means, there’s little I probably wouldn’t do to have kids that minded me, that didn’t throw fits if they couldn’t watch Scooby Doo at 6 a.m.; that didn’t scream and wail in the car seat after an hour, and who didn’t sulk like I just tanned their hides with daddy’s narrow leather belt each time we tried to get them to go to church where we hope to both introduce them to other “Godlike” children and perhaps get a little Jesus in the process. I dunno, lofty goals perhaps.
It’s no secret that I feel that raising children is something best left for the likes of Mother Teresa, or perhaps even Gandhi (that is, if Gandhi hadn’t lived in abject poverty), who seem capable of meeting even the most vile of situations with an outward calm that–I personally believe–likely hid an inner desire to pick up a stick and beat the crap out of the other person. But they LOOKED calm and that’s what matters.
Anyway, CareerMom and I, until this past year, have been the only ones of her six other brothers and sisters who have reared boys. Everyone else–girls. And while yes, there was drama, there was never any of the problems we’ve lived through. For instance, remember the Infamous beach vacation of ’07 (Part 1 and Part 2), well, while everyone else was upstairs with their darling little girls having a grand old time, we were downstairs with two exhausted boys, including one baby who wouldn’t stay asleep for more than 15 minutes at a time–each time waking up and screaming at the top of his lungs.
The other siblings, and to a large part even both CareerMom and my parents, have never understood our reluctance to travel. They don’t live through the sleepless nights, the miserable car trips, etc., that we go through each time just to make someone else happy. (On a sidenote, I have since learned to not give a rat’s butt what anyone else wants. If I don’t want to go, I don’t go. CareerMom is optional. Life is too short to be miserable.)
This all changed with the birth of a boy to CareerMom’s next oldest sister. She had a boy. And not just any boy..a HOSS of a boy. In the past year CareerMom and I have sat back and grinned as her sister has regaled the family with his latest exploits and most recently, when her family took a trip to South Carolina, I couldn’t wait to copy CareerMom on her sister’s FaceBook update that said,
“…just stopped at a random park in NC to give the kids a break from the car…we got to take a miniature train ride!”
This may seem minute to you, but I also happen to know that he’d been cranky in the car a good bit of the trip, so for them to stop…well, that’s just a little bit of Gold in my book!
Shall I apologize for finding solace in another’s misery? Should I feel bad that someone else is finally understanding–even if just a wee bit–what CareerMom and I have been trying to explain to others for five years? Maybe so, but I won’t!
And here in just two short months, we’ll have a little girl around the house and I PRAY, OH Dear Lord, I PRAY, that we get one of those darling little sleepers and not another personality like the last two. I’m not sure I can take another six months of colic!
Postulates & Pastimes 
Okay, where did I miss the blog entry that talked about boy #3 becoming a girl? Cause I saw it somewhere else and thought I must be going crazy, that it was all my imagination. Was there one I missed?
I really don’t think it’s a boy/girl thing, more a personality thing, and I really do hope you get an easy one this time around! Isn’t it funny, whenever you get into that judging thing — like I’ve done with my sister — one day it comes around and you realize that maybe there really are a few details that make it difficult to step into someone else’s shoes. Some people are just so much less bothered by things than I am — oh my, so much less irritated by the small things. But then I look at their lives and see this BIG things that I could never deal with.
I say revel in whatever you can find that puts a smile on your face, including other people’s difficult children:)
RE: What? You didn’t know? It wasn’t that long ago really. We’ve only been SURE it was a girl for about a month now–at 23 weeks. Did I tell you how innappropriate the sonogram tech was? Well, she was the second tech to do an ultrasound and she said it was a girl after the first said it was a boy. But after that, we still weren’t 100% sure. So, when we came back for the 3rd Ultrasound, it was the same lady who thought it was a girl. So, she’s sitting there showing us the baby on the screen and she says, “As you can clearly see there, it’s a girl.”
And I, always trying to be funny, said, “Well, I AM a guy…so that doesn’t necessarily prove anything to me.” Which, in retrospect I’ll admit, didn’t do anything to disprove the whole, “Men couldn’t find my hmm hmm, if it was staring him in the face” saying.
So, the tech gives me this smarmy look…moves the camera bit and says, “Well, if you pretend she’s sitting on a glass table, and you’re underneath looking up, this is what you’ll see.”
Needless to say, I was both flabbergasted and a bit disgusted at the same time. But, she was right. There was NO confusion as to whether or not this was a girl.
TMI? Sorry.
LOL – there’s never too much information for me! And I’m not going to say anything else, not even a word, nothing at all about it being a girl:)
Some of these people who work in the baby field seem to forget that these are things you will remember for your entire life, that everything regarding this stuff is A BIG DEAL, even though it’s not to them. I don’t think glass tables fit into that equation. When we found out about ours the last time the receptionist opened her window and yelled across the room: “SO DIDJA WANNA KNOW WHAT IT IS?”
I can’t allow myself to say anything at all about the father/daughter relationship, no matter how much I want to . . LOL.
Not even about an elderly blonde midget in lingerie?
People always tell me how good my boy is, of course then I tell them to come home with me then let me know what they think. Wtach your tounge around that girl…man are they sensitive, even as little ones. I often hurt my little nieces feelings without even understanding why.
RE: Not even! (Did ANYONE get my “Happy Gilmore” reference? No? You all fail!
This is the first time I’m hearing about the girl thing too (my own fault). Congrats! Having only a girl and not much exposure to little boys, I have no experience to make comparisons. I can say that mine has very strong opinions and does not mind sharing them. I don’t know if that’s a girl thing, but that’s definitely my girl’s thing. Oh, and she will wear a dress on rare occasions. Seriously, congratulations!
RE: Thanks! After this three-day weekend, I think I can handle “opinionated,” but if I have to add an additional 1/3 amount of energy to my daily activities, I think I
l’ll be dead outside of a week. Boys will whoop a person, and quick!