Boy? Girl? Bald-headed Squirrel?

Remember when you were a kid and out jump-roping on the playground? You always jump-roped to some sort of crazy rhyme and over the years they evolve with the upcoming generations creating new versions that leave you thinking, "What happened to the good-old days? When all Cinderella went upstairs for was to kiss a fella?" I won't go into what changes I've heard to that song from random children on playgrounds but, one that's sort of cracked me up and has been an ongoing joke between my teacher colleagues is the one where "Mama's gonna have a baby." Remember that one?

Well, when I was a kid, it went something like this (with my adult-brained interjections included):

Fudge, Fudge, call the judge, Mama's gonna have a baby. (Why are we calling a judge? And who is Fudge? Is Fudge even a person? Or is that a form of a word that we weren't allowed to say in which case I was too naive to know any better?)
Wrap it up in toilet paper (WHAT!?!?!?!?)
Send it down the elevator (Uh.....)
What do you think it was? (Sheesh)
Boy? Girl? Twins? Triplets?
Repeat.

Okay, now that you've actually read and remembered the little rhyme we all used to jump-rope to and have processed it with maybe as much shock as I did when I really actually thought about what I was chanting when I was 7, I'll let you in on how this one has evolved on our playground. It's really quite simple. Could it be a boy? Maybe. Could it be a girl? Maybe. But, twins and triplets have been nixed off the list and replaced with the fantastic image of a bald-headed squirrel.

How on earth does this relate to my baby? Well, the kids all ask me what my baby is and I usually responded with a simple, "It's a surprise!" Then, one day, I remembered this chant from the playground and decided that Since it's unknown whether it's a boy or girl at this point, it is a bald-headed squirrel. Needless to say, I immediately regretted my decision as it took me approximately 7 minutes and 32 seconds to regain control of my library. True story.

In all seriousness, one of the first questions people ask is whether we're going to find out the sex of our baby.

Our answer is simple. No.

These conversations usually proceed along the lines of either: "Why?", "I could never wait to find out, I don't know how you'll do it.", "That's not fair! How will I know what to buy your baby?", etc.

My response is also simple. "Because we want to.", " I'm a patient person.", "Too bad.", etc.

There are many reasons why the sex of our baby is going to remain a mystery, and believe me, it was a topic of great discussion. Mostly, it boils down to the fact, that we don't want to miss out on that moment of announcing "It's a _____!!!" to all of our surrounding friends and family and even to ourselves the moment our little gift arrives. We've thought about just finding out ourselves, but goodness knows that information WILL slip my lips at some point in time, so we're just going the old-fashioned way.

Like I've said before, I'll probably refer to the baby as a "he" on the blog because "it" just doesn't sit right with me and I haven't given him a creative name to otherwise go by.

Do I have any inklings? No, although I find myself saying that the baby will probably be a girl simply because I've always imagined my first baby as a boy and everyone knows just how much little girls terrify me. But, we currently have a battle of grandma's (well, I guess great-grandma's) going on (both of whom have never been wrong) one of which says our baby will be a boy and the other swears a girl. As for me and Rob, we are content to just sit back and enjoy the ride with images of holding the most beautiful baby in our arms - boy or girl.