CHAPTER 10 THE THING INSIDE ME

The whole first five months of the pregnancy I didn't really know if I wanted a boy or a girl. When people asked me I usually said I wanted a girl because it was what they wanted to hear. Everyone always assumed since I was such a girly girl that I would want to raise a girl like that. Don't get me wrong if I had a girl I would. She would become the pinkest barbie doll cheerleading designer clothes wearing person ever. The whole time I was pregnant from about the second month I started dreaming that I was having a boy. Not just anyboy though, a bald headed cartoon boy. If any of you watch the Simpsons and have seen Apu's kids I kept dreaming that I was having the little one with the culdisac hairline. I think I dreamt this because my husband is so dark that I naturally assumed our son would come out dark and Apu's kids must have been the darkest kids I could conjour up in my dreams. Anyway some nights I would wake up pretty upset that I was going to have a cartoon baby. We were going to find out in March what our baby was going to be. About two days before we were going to find out I was driving home up my street and I saw this little boy about 7 years old outside running around in a spider man costume. Mind you it was March so it wasn't even a Halloween costume. I could not get the image of my neighborhood spiderman out of my head. That night I couldn't sleep I woke up Rob at about 3 to ask him what he was for Halloween when he was younger. He told me he had been a base ball player, a cow boy, batman and robin and so on. It was settled. I wanted a boy. I didn't want 10 years of princess costumes and butterfly wings. I wanted a boy. I wanted someone to climb the walls and play in the dirt. We have a family friend named Norma who is from Mexico and doesn't speak the best english. I have always thought she held some secret powers. Anyway from the day she found out I was pregnant she touched my stomach and said "You are having a boy, I know." So the day we are going to find out I made the appointment before work. We went in and the lady was doing a ton of measurments. She kept telling me the sex wasn't important and she would get to it after all the other stuff was done. So I stopped watching and started talking to Rob about how she had just told me the baby had a full bladder. "Okay so it looks like you are having a boy." I'm sorry what. I wasn't even paying attention. "You are having a boy, look there is his little turtle right there." (she actually referred to my sons penis as a turtle." I was so happy. I started to cry because I knew that me and this thing inside were going to get along. During this ultrasound we also got to se a little bit of his personality. First he started jumping up and down inside me. Then the lady moved the wand so it was pressing his head. And you could see him start jumping up and trying to head butt the wand out of there. He got so mad he started stomping his feet and shaking his arms. It became obvious this little boy was going to have some personality. I liked that. I went to work and made the annoucement. My dad was so excited he actually drove to Babies R Us all by himself and brought back a little tiny Giants baseball hat and a yellow bib with a lizard on it that when you pressed a button it burped at you. He was over the moon. That day started a chain of random stuff buying. He bought him little carharts and flannels, a santa outfit, a raiders outfit (or two or three, shoes, Nike socks and so on. (The insaine grandparent buying hasn't stopped. In fact my dad can't even go to the grocery store or a 7-11 with out buying something for my son.) After this my husband, my mom and I loaded up and took a trip to Babies R Us. We bought a crib, a night stand and the most beautiful bedding ever. I ran home and set it all up and before I knew it we had a babies room. I found a song that I loved to play to the baby called Simple Man by Lynard Skinard. I would play it in the car, at work or in headphones to my belly. I was starting to like the thing in my belly. However I was still convinced I was going to love my cat more then my baby.