If you’ve been reading my column for a while and are anything like my kids (and friends and family), you’ve likely been wondering for a while when we’d have another baby. You might have even stopped wondering, since it’s been a longer while than ever before. My boys had been asking me for the last three years when we’re going to have another baby, because they’d figured out that roughly every two years, we have another baby. In fact, they’d asked for so long without success that they stopped asking. And wouldn’t you know—just when they stopped asking, it happened. (My oldest’s response was, “Really? I thought you were too old!”)
Yes, we’re having another baby! (And no, I’m not too old!) We’re all over-the-moon excited about having another tiny sweetie pie in the house—the boys were ecstatic when we told them, and ask me constantly how the baby’s doing, and how big the baby is. Each week I look up the new size of the baby, based on the various web sites that tell you such things in food-related terms: the boys were amazed to hear that the first size I gave them was a poppy seed, then a sesame seed, and so on—now, at sixteen weeks, the baby’s the size of an avocado.
But one thing they’re not excited about is the idea of a baby sister.
You have to know that the possibility that this baby might be a girl, after six boys, is all that’s on anyone’s minds! One of my dear friends even gave me a tiny pair of pink sandals, just because she’s so excited at the idea of us having a girl (we’ve never found out the sex ahead of time). When I ask my boys if they think the baby’s a boy or a girl, they’re all pretty much in agreement that they “hope it’s a boy but think it’s a girl.” I even overheard a conversation they all had recently—all six of them, from the thirteen-year-old down to the four-year-old, were active participants—in which they listed all the ways that having a sister would ruin their lives. These included:
• They won’t be able to wrestle as roughly with their dad, because they’re sure Dad would want to be extra gentle so as not to hurt the girl
• She’ll insist on having tea parties all the time
• She’ll have her own room
Yeah, definitely sounds life-ruining to me. (Eye roll.) I’m thinking that learning to be gentle—learning to control their strength—is a pretty good thing for them. I’m thinking maybe they won’t have to worry about tea parties—I never in my whole life played at tea parties. (At the same time, the mental image of big boys sitting at a little table with fake tea and being bossed by a tiny girl kind of cracks me up.) They’re right about her having her own room though, and I can understand their frustration at that (if it helps, her room would be the smallest in the house, by far).
One thing they didn’t mention in their conversation, but I know from the past is a real concern of theirs, is the presence of baby dolls. We spent a week on vacation with my entire family this summer, which included all ten of my parents’ grandsons and their lone granddaughter, who had just turned one, and she brought a dolly that has the eyes that close when she lays down and open when she sits up. I thought nothing of it—I have three sisters and two brothers and dolls and action figures co-existed in our house with no problems that I remember—but my six-year-old was especially terrified by it! He screamed when he first saw it, and even had nightmares, which makes me laugh harder than it should. This is something we’ll definitely have to figure out.
If we have a girl, that is, and the odds are apparently not in her favor. Research shows that, worldwide, there are more boys born than girls each year—I saw numbers ranging from 105 boys for every 100 girls (a more natural statistic) to 118 boys for every 100 girls (in China, due to sex-selective abortion). There’s even a hypothesis that, even though you’d think the odds are 50-50 each time, the more children of the same gender that are born to a couple, the more likely they are to continue having the same gender (there are “experts” on both sides of this, however. There’s also mom of thirteen boys, Kateri Schwandt [google her!], who I’m sure has some thoughts on this; she’s expecting baby number fourteen this month and they don’t know the gender—it will be interesting to see if their streak continues!)
What does this mean for the only girl currently in the house (me)? Not a thing. I’ve never had a preference for a boy or a girl. I get a special thrill out of being the mom of all boys (and so many of them!). If we had another boy, what a blessed mama I would be! At the same time, having a girl would be so new and different—there would certainly be a learning curve regarding some things, I’m sure, even though this is far from my first rodeo. If we had a girl, what a blessed mama I would be! Either way, I can’t wait to meet this little one come fall.
Happy Spring to you all! I hope by the time you’re reading this, warmer weather is on the horizon!
Kate and her husband have six sons ages 13, 11, 9, 8, 6, and 4; they’re expecting their seventh baby in the fall. Follow her at www.facebook.com/kmtowne23, or email her at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
