Tuesday, July 12, 2005
I feel like somebody cut my arm off! I miss Baby V!!!
I remember when Steve and I went to have a look at the ultrasound that first time. I knew I had to be having a girl: I had dreamed about a little girl with dark hair and large oval eyes named Gia skipping between us as we held her hands. I was all set to sew infant-sized leopard-print skirts and I had already made a baby blanket patterned with tiny pink kittens and balls of yarn. I was going to raise her to be the girl I had always wanted to be: independent, nonplussed by what others said and untouched by the propaganda that propelled her mother into an eating disorder. After all, I thought, I know what to do with a girl. Being a girl myself would surely give me an edge. So when the ultrasound tech smeared my belly with the gel and proceeded with the test, I happily peered at the screen, waiting to be shown the little vagina so I could call my mom with the news. "Okay, I know what it is", the tech said in her Italian accent. "Do you want to know?" she asked us. Of course we did. Who wouldn't take advantage of technology nowadays? "Well, if that's not a penis, then I don't know what it is", she said triumphantly. A penis? Gia has a penis? Then it struck me: Gia was a boy.
I literally had moments of panic after that. I had no idea what to do with a boy! How was I going to raise a boy? I did not even have a boy's name chosen yet. I didn't even like any boy's names! After I calmed down, images of my childhood played themselves out in my mind like some lost super-8 films. Age five. First day of kindergarden. I played with the big blocks and built a car with the boys. I had no interest in the wooden stove with its red-handled pots and pans. Fast-forward to age six. Played with spotted salamanders in the creek near my cousin's house. Dug up earthworms and placed them in empty cool-whip tubs to take them for rides on my big wheel. Age nine: If there were girls in the neighborhood, I didn't know them. The boy next door and I were playing with my metal Tonka trucks in the mud behind my mom-mom's house. Age ten or eleven years. Built jumps out of scrap wood and pedaled full-speed over them. I had a boy's racing bike with a yellow banana seat that was the envy of them all. Twelve or thirteen. Played flashlight tag with my brother. Ran into him as we were each coming around opposite sides of the house. He was riding a bike, I wasn't, and I still have the scars on my leg. The images continued, and I started to understand why I was being shown them: I was meant to be a boy's mother. In fact, I knew nothing at all about raising a girl. Did I really want to tell my daughter what I did with my one-and-only Barbie and my mother's old Ken doll? (okay, I stripped the Malibu Barbie nude so I could see her tan lines, and I made Ken wear all of her clothes.) As she got older, how would I shield my daughter from all the skeletal images of women on the pages of magazines, sandwiched in between the instructions for the new "diet of the month" and a recipe for death-by-chocolate brownies? When should she start birth control, and how in the hell do I talk to her about it? What if she became the girl I could never be: frilly, afraid to get dirt under her nails, student council president football-player dating...Oh god, what if she became a cheerleader?!
Everyday, I thank whomever that I was blessed with my boy. I cannot imagine it any other way. I can't wait until we can look for bugs in the woods and we can build forts in the house out of sheets on rainy days and I can share my vintage matchbox car collection with him. Hell, I would've done the same if he were a girl. (It's the only way I know.) And he doesn't even mind the baby blanket I made with the tiny kittens on it.
I remember when Steve and I went to have a look at the ultrasound that first time. I knew I had to be having a girl: I had dreamed about a little girl with dark hair and large oval eyes named Gia skipping between us as we held her hands. I was all set to sew infant-sized leopard-print skirts and I had already made a baby blanket patterned with tiny pink kittens and balls of yarn. I was going to raise her to be the girl I had always wanted to be: independent, nonplussed by what others said and untouched by the propaganda that propelled her mother into an eating disorder. After all, I thought, I know what to do with a girl. Being a girl myself would surely give me an edge. So when the ultrasound tech smeared my belly with the gel and proceeded with the test, I happily peered at the screen, waiting to be shown the little vagina so I could call my mom with the news. "Okay, I know what it is", the tech said in her Italian accent. "Do you want to know?" she asked us. Of course we did. Who wouldn't take advantage of technology nowadays? "Well, if that's not a penis, then I don't know what it is", she said triumphantly. A penis? Gia has a penis? Then it struck me: Gia was a boy.
I literally had moments of panic after that. I had no idea what to do with a boy! How was I going to raise a boy? I did not even have a boy's name chosen yet. I didn't even like any boy's names! After I calmed down, images of my childhood played themselves out in my mind like some lost super-8 films. Age five. First day of kindergarden. I played with the big blocks and built a car with the boys. I had no interest in the wooden stove with its red-handled pots and pans. Fast-forward to age six. Played with spotted salamanders in the creek near my cousin's house. Dug up earthworms and placed them in empty cool-whip tubs to take them for rides on my big wheel. Age nine: If there were girls in the neighborhood, I didn't know them. The boy next door and I were playing with my metal Tonka trucks in the mud behind my mom-mom's house. Age ten or eleven years. Built jumps out of scrap wood and pedaled full-speed over them. I had a boy's racing bike with a yellow banana seat that was the envy of them all. Twelve or thirteen. Played flashlight tag with my brother. Ran into him as we were each coming around opposite sides of the house. He was riding a bike, I wasn't, and I still have the scars on my leg. The images continued, and I started to understand why I was being shown them: I was meant to be a boy's mother. In fact, I knew nothing at all about raising a girl. Did I really want to tell my daughter what I did with my one-and-only Barbie and my mother's old Ken doll? (okay, I stripped the Malibu Barbie nude so I could see her tan lines, and I made Ken wear all of her clothes.) As she got older, how would I shield my daughter from all the skeletal images of women on the pages of magazines, sandwiched in between the instructions for the new "diet of the month" and a recipe for death-by-chocolate brownies? When should she start birth control, and how in the hell do I talk to her about it? What if she became the girl I could never be: frilly, afraid to get dirt under her nails, student council president football-player dating...Oh god, what if she became a cheerleader?!
Everyday, I thank whomever that I was blessed with my boy. I cannot imagine it any other way. I can't wait until we can look for bugs in the woods and we can build forts in the house out of sheets on rainy days and I can share my vintage matchbox car collection with him. Hell, I would've done the same if he were a girl. (It's the only way I know.) And he doesn't even mind the baby blanket I made with the tiny kittens on it.
# posted by Christa @ 4:43 PM 
