RSS Feed Subscribe
Patience is a virtue and one that is generally a toss-up for me. I can stand in line at the store fully comfortable with the concept that it is not my turn but I can’t keep my tongue when David pulls the car half sideways into a parking space as far away from the building we are going to as humanly possible. I can wait patiently in traffic, at the doctor’s office or the DMV by taking just a small brain vacation while I wait but once again I can’t seem to keep my tongue when David pulls out of the driveway going the wrong direction to get to a place we have been a million times. I can generally sit with my father-in-law who has Alzheimer’s and listen to the same babble about where his house is over and over without losing my cool but my responses get a bit snarky when I am answering questions from able brained humans for the umpteenth time. And when it comes to waiting for exciting information from the kids—not my forte.
Christi and Kenny are having a baby in September and the gender was revealed to them on ultrasound several weeks ago. They had already told the Kenny side of the family and I was still waiting with bated breath to find out. Christi and Kenny had decided to put off telling the Allen side of the family since basically the entire family including their aunt, grandma, nephews and nieces would be captured together for 10 glorious days in Hawaii in the next couple weeks. Luckily Christi told me she and Kenny would reveal the gender of the baby at the family luau planned for the third night of the trip, otherwise I would have literally been vibrating with anticipation the entire trip.
Now you all know how it goes, as soon as someone tells you they are pregnant you begin to “Intune” what the baby’s gender will be. When my daughter Jess and her husband Chambliss told us she was pregnant, I was just sure it was a little boy. Their gender reveal involved a co-family dinner and cute little scratch off cards that revealed a pretty little pink bow for a girl and a cute little black mustache for a boy. I would have been elated either way frankly but was pleased that my intuition was still accurate when I scratched my card and found a cute little black mustache looking up at me.
Sitting at the luau I am absolutely on pins and needles. I have been absolutely convinced that the Christi/Kenny baby is a girl. Finally Christi and Kenny walk to the head of the table with a gift bag in their hands. “Mom, since you always want to be the first to know about everything” Christi says to me as she hands me the bag. Oh, goodness, I’m going to reveal their baby’s gender—What! Now massive thoughts of insecurity ratchet through my brain—What if I don’t understand what is in the bag. What if I forget to tell everyone at the table. What if my reaction isn’t what it should be and I forever ruin what should be a precious moment in the kid’s life….and on and on and on.
With fingers trembling as much from anxiety as from anticipation, I open the bag and peer inside. There at the bottom lies a little colored t-shirt. As if in slow motion I reach down into the bag so I can share the robin blue t-shirt with the family all the while my intuition monster is running around in a circle with its hands flung above its head asking incredulously—how could we have been so wrong! I pull out the shirt and read the inscription:
Whoop Whoop IT’S A GIRL!!!!
Hooray not only is this grandma’s intuition still batting a thousand, I am now the luckiest woman on the planet! I have a beautiful grandson and now and I am going to have an adorable little granddaughter.
