Sunday, February 15, 2015

Breaking the News

On Friday, I went and had the mid-pregnancy ultrasound that checks for all sorts of health and well-being things, but more importantly tells us whether the small person currently in residence is a boy or a girl.

Margaret and Ellie had both been saying for a while that they wanted a little sister, and Margaret had gone so far as to demand that I not tell her that it was a boy.  She wanted to be told that it was a girl, though, so I'm not sure how she thought the secret would be kept.

I stopped on the way home to grab a onesie that would convey the news to them.


Margaret got hung up on awesome, but figured out the rest of it, and then, more in sorrow than in anger, told me that she had wanted a baby sister, so shouldn't I do something about that?  Ellie insisted on trying to put the onesie on, and then, when it wouldn't go over her head, cast herself on the floor sobbing that I wasn't to buy clothes for the baby, I was to buy clothes for her.

Welcome to being the middle child, short stuff.  Welcome to being the middle child.

Anyway, by yesterday morning, Margaret had developed a simple plan to change things.  All we needed was a paper bag, some oil, and a dead girl.

We were to grind up the dead girl in oil, and then plaster the paste over my stomach under a paper bag, and then I needed to drink the oil, and -- as she put it -- "easy-peasy, we have a girl."

Leo and I declined to help her gather the ingredients.

We are happy to have a boy, and Margaret and Ellie have come around to it.  I'm not sure how Ellie feels about clothing purchasing habits (which, I'm afraid, are going to be slanted against her for a long time to come), but she's accepted the idea of a little brother.  Margaret is very excited about the whole thing now, and has given up her gruesome voodoo plans, which is all to the good.

No comments:

Post a Comment