Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Thoughts of a Soon-to-be Second Time Father

So the news is out. Sheryl is pregnant with our second child and we really do appreciate all the congratulations and well wishes from all over the world (Hi to Chris and Lena in Kyiv and anyone from Loughborough that might be reading).

And that’s the actual reason I started posting this Tuesday update, kind of to track my thoughts throughout the pregnancy so that Wilson II: The Quickening will be able to see them from when s/he was in utero. I was always curious as to who my parents were before I was born and what they thought about things, so this blog is to see how exactly I felt about things. Btw, yes, we are going to find out the sex in January and that’s actually the subject of today’s blog.

As most of you know, Sheryl and I have a daughter, Kinsey, who will turn 5 on June 5. The due date for this child is May 30, so just six days difference in the two birthdays, if everything goes according to schedule. Sheryl and I were always going to find out the sex (we did with Kinsey), but the closeness of the due date makes it really interesting.

I think as a guy I’m genetically predisposed to wanting a son. Someone to roughhouse with, take to football games, all that guy kind of stuff. Which is stupid, because I can and do do all that with Kinsey. She roughhouses with the best of them, with me anyway. But I still would like a boy, at least to even up the odds in the house. However, having a boy would mean buying a whole slew of new stuff (or at least borrowing it). If we have a girl, not only do we have all the girlie toys (yes, another social stereotype), we have all the clothes in the right season in the right size (winter for 6-9 months, summer for 12-18, etc), plus I’ve got experience with a girl and at least have some expectations of how one will act and react.

For instance, putting Kinsey to bed last night. She decided she wanted her blinds open and obviously, that’s not going to work. So I shut them. She proceeds to open them one by one with her hands. They’re those slat blinds. I told her to stop and with that look at me like “What are you going to do about it?” she did one more. Now I know she’s tired and she needed go to sleep, so I picked her up, laid her on her bed, and shut the door.

You would have thought I had cut off her hand or something. She cried for 20 minutes, calling for Mommy the entire time. I finally went in there and told her that she could see Mommy when she stopped crying and she did, and then fell asleep in about five minutes.

The joys of parenthood.


btw, for an "ouch" laugh today, go to Preston's blog and prepare to sing along.

6 comments:

believingthomas said...

Phil,
What are you thinking of Velvet Elvis?

Phil said...

I'm enjoying it. I will say that I listened to it before I started reading it. And I've listened to a lot of Bell stuff for a long time so I'm familiar with a lot of what he talks about in this.

I still find Mike Cope's comments from a couple of weeks ago interesting and I'd like to hear more about that side of things at some point.

I like what Bell has to say and the way he says it. He has some really important things to say to us as Christians. I like this one in particular: that we should try to teach the message of Jesus without Scripture, because the people that we should be talking to might not be familiar with the Bible and to refer to it would not have any importance or authority.

Interesting stuff.

Phil said...

I should ask this as well:

Are you reading it as well, and, if so, what do you think of it?

Malia said...

I expressed a similiar sentiment to my mother about the sex of my then unborn child when I was pregnant with our son. (We did not find out the sex beforehand.) I remember saying that having a boy would be great but that I already know about girls having had one. Her response was so wise she basically said that when I was pregnant with our daughter I didn't "know" about raising a girl or boy for that matter and that it really wasn't any different then than the second time around.

She was so right. And honestly, other than getting used to changing a diaper with different anatomy, the first year has not been any different from my daughter's first year. They do the same things at pretty much the same time and the biggest difference is in YOU! This time you understand a lot more about what is going on with them and about how tired you will be and that that there is a light at the end of the tunnel that's not an oncoming train...sorry, I'm rambling.

I'm just now at one year beginning see any differences between them and really those differences could be attributed to gender or they could be attributed to the fact that they are just differnet children. Who knows, who cares? It's just awesome to be witness to it.

believingthomas said...

No I have not ordered it yet. I have several books still in the que to get through. I was wondering if it had any new material or was another way to reach those who might not listen at Mars Hill or Nooma... I too have listend for some time to his on-line lessons and have the nooma videos.

Yeah, Mike's comments are interesting to me too, but I am trying so hard not to be one who throws out everyone that I don't agree with completely that I haven't given it a lot of weight. If that makes any sense?

jettybetty said...

Congratulations to you and Sheryl!

My husband wanted a boy, I wanted a girl.

I enjoyed the boy more than I ever imagined, he was the same with the girl(s).

My summary--they are both WONDERFUL!

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