Wednesday, September 21, 2011

An Open Letter to the Lady at the Farmers' Market and the Lady at the Apple Store who offered me their unwanted condolences for expecting a second boy

Dear Ladies,

I don't know you and you don't me.

Yet, when you noticed the basketball "hiding" under my shirt and asked if I knew the baby's sex, and you learned that I have a 2 and a half year old son, and was expecting another son, you felt the need to sigh heavily and say:

"Oh, maybe next time you'll have a girl."

Maybe, Farmer's Market Lady, just maybe, next time you won't feel the need to add your two cents when I'm having a lovely conversation with the man at the deli counter who is slicing my turkey. Maybe you won't assume that I'm having a third baby when I HAVEN'T EVEN HAD THE 2nd ONE YET! And maybe you won't assume that I was "trying for a girl" this time.

And, you, Lady at the Apple Store, you felt the need to pause, blink back a tear in your eye and say to me, a perfect stranger, "It's okay, it's okay," when I revealed I was carrying a 2nd boy.

Thanks so much, Dr. Phil! Of course it's okay. And, it's not just okay, it's fabulous.

Do you crazy ladies know the infinity pool of baby boy clothes that I am swimming in here at my house?

Do you know the fleet of boy vehicles that I have just waiting for another driver to hop on?

Do you know the vast store of little boy counterinsurgency tactics I have picked up in the past few years?

Do you know that I have a toddler who is counting the seconds until he meets his little baby brother? Do you know he can't wait to buy him stuffed animals and take him for walks to the park and zoom cars down the hallway with him?

Do you know how much joy and excitement and laughter and insanity and life that our son has brought to our lives?

Do you know how thrilled we were in that ultrasound room when we spotted what was undeniably a boy part?

Do you know that not all families need both a boy and a girl to be complete? Both are wonderful, but so are families with two boys or three girls or one child or no children at all.

So, please random ladies (and men too), please stop offering condolences to me and people like me. It is so inappropriate.

However, if you spot me in the supermarket a year from now being headbutted by BOTH sons or perhaps worse, now THAT is an appropriate time to offer your condolences to me - or at least withhold judgment when I push my shopping cart with both sons in it 20 feet away from me and pretend that I'm the mother of the quiet little girl who is checking the sugar content of the cereal box on the shelf next to me.

THAT would be appropriate.

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