Tiny miracles. Call it what you may but I'm thinking about them today. First off I'm still amazed that we are posting about pregnancy and a baby on this blog. Deep down I never really thought that would happen since I started this blog after my son was born. Pregnancy in and of itself truly is a miracle.
To let our kids know that we where having a girl we brought home a boxed pink ice cream cake. After going around and having each child say what they thought the baby would be, they opened the box for the answer. My son has always said this baby was a boy. The girls were an even 50/50 split. Bud Boy was pretty disappointed about it not being a boy and for the next few hours was quite angry. It broke my heart to see him so upset and I was amazed how much he actually understood.
Things are fine now and back to normal. It was nice to hear him say yesterday, "I'm so excited for my birthday and the baby" (He's knows his birthday hopefully will come right before this baby. I say right before because they both have the same due date so we are just hoping they end up with different birthdays). Anyway, so grateful children are resilient and adaptable.
There was a part of me that thought we were having a boy as well . Mostly this stems from that it would have been very convenient. We could put all the kids together in groups of two. I've done the baby girl thing in a group and could now do the boy thing in a group. I already had all the clothes for a boy. A couple of years ago I gave away all our baby girl things (except for the few precious ones that held memories to dear to part with) to our younger two nieces. Giving those things away was a decision I thought long and hard about. They were given freely with no expectation of having them back. It was something that I felt really good about. This fact alone was why I really thought we were having a boy.
Convenient is not always the Lord's way. This weekend my husband and I got away for a couple of days. It was perfect timing and just what we needed to process this new turn of events.
One major concern with adding another child was what rooms everyone would sleep in. If we had a boy we would have needed to move our five year old (who currently shares a room with her brother) upstairs into her 12 year old sister's room. While this was the easy solution it was a big concern for me because the upstairs is on a different schedule. Later nights because of homework and activities and early mornings. My five year old is one who really needs her sleep. Having a girl is a hidden blessing for it alleviated this issue. She can now stay downstairs and share a room with her new baby sister.
Of course it means we need to find a room where Bud Boy can have his own room. The means a lot of moving around. We are going to move our computer/craft room (ie the office) upstair into a sort of family/toy room. The space available to put the computer is quite small. Thanks to some shopping at IKEA (love that they cater to small spaces) I think we found a desk that will work. The hidden blessing is things will be a lot more organized. I love organization!
For a variety of reasons I won't bore you with we also needed to purchase a new car seat and stroller. This was something else we spent some time checking out this past weekend. We had decided on the model we wanted but knew we needed to save up some money. Just before leaving we turned around to see the travel system we had wanted marked to almost half. It was a design they where discontinuing and thus it was on clearance. It was pink! I would have never thought of buying pink before. Always thinking of what future kid might need to use it. We just so happen to be having a girl and not worried about a future kid (I really hope this is truly the case for I can't do another pregnancy again- so hard this time around). It was a hidden blessing.
Having a girl means a little more work as we reorganize our home and need to buy girl things. I can see that those things are actually for the better and the Lord is blessing us with the means to be able to do this. I spent yesterday going through all the baby clothes and pulling out what might work for a girl. I waffle between sadness over all that I have to buy and excitement of new things. If things go anything like the car seat we bought this might just be the most spoiled girl we ever had.
She'll be the most spoiled anyways because she's the youngest...right?? :)
ReplyDeleteWe are really excited for you to have another little one, and at least Nathan is used to girls! I'm glad things are going pretty well despite the inconveniences.
So glad to hear about your small miracles. Those little tender mercies can be such testimony builders.
ReplyDeleteWhat fun to have another girl.
Kara, it really is amazing how life just falls into place.
ReplyDeleteI think you were meant to have a new adorable pink stroller and I really think you need to get a few new things for this baby.
And, I bet you'll get a ton of handmedowns. Girls always have those.