"Dress"ing Pickles

I've been ordering clothes from ebay for Pickles. Yes, she's a GIRL. We've had a grand ol' time torturing the offspring with the withholding of this information for the past couple of weeks. We had to tell them, though, when it looked like Ben was going to pop a gasket at the mere mention of pickled snacks. Sometime during my delusional sick state Tad carried me off to get a sonogram. I didn't have a voice at the time so I couldn't manage my usual banter with the sonographer but she did let us in on the little secret that our growing baby appears to have a "hamburger" dupa versus a "hotdog" model. Then she printed off a bunch of still shots, none of which showed the hamburger from any angle. We realized this would give us free reign to torture Pickles' siblings mercilessly - and we did. We finally broke down and told Nathan the news and then watched the show as the kids invented all sorts of ways to wring it out of him. They finally decided Nathan was speaking in code and came up with their version of the solution. If Nathan declared the baby a 'nana then it is certainly a girl, a gookie indicates a hotdog and a Gooka (Nate's name for Pooka the dog) means I'll be giving birth to a gender-neutral puppy. Unfortunately, Nate changed his story by the hour - giving them the impression that I just might be giving birth to a hermaphroditic golden retriever.

The only one who didn't play the game was David who insisted from the get-go that I am most certainly bearing him a little sister. He stated it over and over insistently and enthusiastically. When questioned about his knowledge he would just say, "Well, the girls have a lot of boys already and they really need a sister. But that doesn't matter because it's a girl." He was really rooting for his sisters but that was irrelevant - the fact that the baby is a girl is no special favor to them, it just is.

By the time Ben could stand it no longer I pulled him aside and shared the news. I allowed him about ten delicious minutes of knowing before we informed the rest of the crew. We happened to have their deaf friend, Teddy, over who ended up in the middle of the commotion without realizing what was getting everyone so riled. So I decided to let Teddy be the bearer of the news and signed the word for girl. Without any understanding why I was doing this he yelled out GIRL! to the delight of some and the dismay of others.

As for Pickles' parents, we're thrilled. With 7 boys and 3 girls it does seem like time for another girl - besides, I'm finally sort of getting the hang of being a girl Mom. It's only taken me....7 years now. For some reason being a Mom to those boys has always come much easier to me.