How to raise a boy.

I don't know how.  To raise a boy.  I mean, I don't know how to "raise" any child.  But, a boy is on the way!

I keep thinking about all the parents in history (and, unfortunately in cultures currently) who really believed that a boy was a more substantial blessing than a girl.  I read a lot of historical fiction-- especially in English history, in which the male monarchs hungry for a son would not even see the newly born child at birth unless it was a boy.  [I know, I know.  Tragic.]


It's a blessing that I am a part of a culture in which that stigma seems to be null and void.  Now we can concentrate on what is really beautiful about each gender.  Isn't it about the individual person who you will be adding to your family, anyway?

So much unknown.  So much mystery about who he or she will be.

It's not that he will "carry on the family name" that excites me about having a boy.  It's not that we will have an heir apparent, or a child from the "stronger" gender.  [I don't even like typing that in jest!]  I've just had a relatively girl-centered existence thus far.  I never had any brothers, and I didn't really spend that much time with my boy cousins.  Even all the babysitting I did was mostly for girls.  [I play "house" and "Barbies" like a pro].  Not to say I am anti-boy (we wanted an older brother so much we made one up)!  I had positive relationships and friendships with members the male sex, including my very balanced and worthy father.  But I've never played with trucks or trains or made sound effects while playing (a friend recently told me that boys are born knowing how to do these things and I'll just need to jump in).

Boys, and what makes them tick, is new territory for me.

The husby is a big comfort to me when I really start to feel concerned about my ability to raise a son.  He balances being a real man so well in this world of pressures to be masculine and tough and non-emotional while also being handsome and thoughtful and sensitive.  He breaks a lot of stigmas, as I imagine most men do.  In T, football guru meets worship leader meets well-read intellectual meets opera buff meets thoughtful romantic meets outdoors-man.  Very interesting!  Doing all of this with him will be a great joy (even when I'm sleep deprived and unsure of whether we really know what we're doing).  He's already a great partner in everything else we take on-- I can't wait to see him change his first diaper [side note: he's never changed a diaper].

I am interested in learning how to raise an adventurer, and explorer, a seeker-- things I think are true for the male identity.  I hope to read up on a lot of this in the next few months.  Mostly, I'll be getting ready to get to know this new little man as an individual.  He'll be an original with his own identity waiting for us to make room for it.  I've been praying to be given some preparation for this-- I'll share my impressions, I'm sure.

Will he be pensive and intellectual?  Sensitive and artistic?  Linguistic and dramatic?  Who knows!  No one on this side of heaven knows yet.

Talk about anticipation!  Christmastime is a fun time to be preggers.  If I'm wondering about so much, how much was Mary contemplating?  More than I; however, I think my blog is my way of "pondering these things" in my heart.

May you have eyes to see the beauty. --Meg Tess

The beauty of new fingerprints

We had out ultrasound on Thursday evening.  I had a lot of nerves leading into the day, but that afternoon I was overcome with calm and resolve that everything would turn out well.  (Probably not me, probably God that helped to calm me down so I could feel the joy.  Okay, let's just agree that it was Him.  Moving on...).

Before I could really think about it, T and I were walking into the ultrasound room.  The technician was really good at her job.  She was calm, kind, and soothing.  And, there was the baby!  Instantly, on the screen.  He/she was moving around a lot.  My favorite part was the heart.  There's just something so surreal and beautiful to the core to see that little heart, with all four chambers, pumping blood through that little body.

After a tear trickled down and I looked at my husband's entranced loving face, I was surprisingly moved by the hands of that little person.  They haven't touched anything yet, but they already have fingerprints.  The brain has just recently learned how to let that body move and squirm and function, but the fingers already have fingerprints?!  That's the extravagance of the beauty of His world... the extras, the over-the-top details.  Like the colors of sunsets (that's the more celebrated cliche extra beauty of the world).  Or, the birds nests that are revealed, perfectly formed, in the highest branches of the trees when all the leaves fall every Autumn.  Or the orange amber glow of the embers in our fireplace at the end of a cold night.

Or, to imagine the beauty those new hands will create.

Or, the fact that these little hands might look like mine, or my grandma's, or my husband's.  Or my husband's great great grandfather.  We won't even know all the beauty.  There's just too much.  But, here's to our hearty attempt to take it all in...

May you have eyes to see the beauty.  --Meg Tess