Boys Are Good

Lately I've gotten a lot of this when people (well, just women, actually) find out I have two little boys: "Oh, were you trying (and/or hoping) for a girl?" or "Oh, so I assume you will go for number three to try and get your girl?".

Now, I must admit that I really don't care for people who assume to know something about me so that even if I was truly heart-broken by having two boys and even if having a second baby was purely an attempt to conceive a girl, I would never give them the satisfaction of knowing. But the truth is that we kind of hoped all along that Baby number two would be a boy. Of course we would have been absolutely thrilled had Beck turned out to be a Becky, but the thought of brothers growing up close in age makes my heart happy.
I love my boys. I love everything about them. Sure, dressing up a little girl would be so much fun and the thought of my kids not having what my mom and me or my sister and me share makes me a little sad, but who's to say it would have been that way anyway? And who's to say that what I have with my sons and what they have with each other won't be even better?

Perhaps there will be a third. Maybe not. And if there is, just maybe it will be a girl. Though, let's be honest here, boy chromosomes run deep in this family and the probability of me having a girl is about as high as my chance of ever being a size 4 again. And yes, if this hypothetical child were to be a girl I would dress her up in all sorts of pink and take her shopping and buy her lots of shoes. But that's really not enough of a reason to wish you had a child of the opposite gender now, is it? And it is certainly not a valid reason to add one more to the mix.

So maybe the people that ask such questions of me are unhappy with their own family make-up. Or maybe they're jealous. Or maybe they are just trying to strike up a conversation and can't think of anything better. But my boys are the best and I would not change them for all of the bows and mary-janes in the world. And, besides, when my boys are teenagers and they adore their mom I will have to bite my tongue as these same women complain about the daily sass-fest that goes on between them and their daughters as they fight for title of Queen Bee of the household. I was once a teenage girl, afterall. I'm just saying.