A Harry moment

Harrison is a little bit of a mama's boy, which I love.  (I should say this is true when only I"m home. When Jamie is home, they both prefer him. Which works out great for me.) If you compare the two kids (which I would never do because that is bad, bad parenting), but if somebody else did it, H is definitely more affectionate towards his mama than P. He will let me cuddle him and hug on him and love on him for long periods of time, where most of the time trying to cuddle Penny is like trying to cuddle a Mexican jumping bean. She'll be still for a moment, but then pops back up and wants to move on to whatever she's doing next. She is even hard to kiss on the lips, she usually prefers kissing you instead, and somewhere weird like on the arm are on your boob on the outside of your shirt. She's a little strange. But we still love her.

Before I was pregnant, I always wanted a daughter. My mom and I have a very good, close relationship and I knew I wanted that when I got older. Plus I saw how my mom took care of my grandma when she was dying, and I knew that having a daughter is key to not ending up abandoned in a nursing home forever. Jamie also wanted a daughter, probably just as much if not a little more than I did. So when we found out we were having two, I figured there was a pretty good chance that we would get our wish. The question was always, 'What was the other one going to be?' We didn't want to know what we were having before I delivered, so the plan was to find out right there on the operating table. We had everything green and yellow, two boys names, two girls names, all that gender-neutral jazz. We were ready to be surprised.

THEN.

Towards the end of my pregnancy I was getting non-stress tests and ultrasounds two or three times a week. Baby A (Penny) had always measured significantly smaller than Baby B, and they wanted to keep an eye on her fluid levels. So I drove my big body to St. John's a few times a week, sat in a chair, drank Sprite and watched Ellen while they monitored me, and then laid on my back on a table and tried to breathe while they took Penny's measurements. During one ultrasound appointment toward the end, I laid on the table and while the ultrasound tech was getting stuff ready, she casually said 'Two girls, right?' I had a moment of shock, as it was written in our file that we didn't know and we didn't WANT to know, but I gathered myself and told her that I didn't know if it was two girls, we were waiting until delivery. She laughed and said that she remembered that now, she must have been thinking of the mother before me. But it freaked. me. out. I convinced myself that it actually was a mistake on her part, that I WAS having two girls, and that these two girls were going to come home to a green and yellow bedroom with green and yellow clothes, and if this was the case than this was not acceptable. So I asked her to tell me. She asked me if I was sure. I told her that I just wanted her to tell me if I was having two girls. She looked at my chart again and said, 'You are not having two girls.' Then I swore her to secrecy that she could not tell my husband or my doctor that I knew, and she swore, and then I knew. I knew I was having a boy and a girl. A had always measured so much smaller than B, so the only way it made sense was that if A was a petite little girl and B was a big strapping boy. And that's pretty much how it ended up.

Sidebar- During delivery, I acted surprised (as surprised as one can while going through a c-section where the epidural never really took) to find out they were one of each and then I didn't tell Jamie the ultrasound story until I got drunk on our first kidless weekend to Chicago when the kids were one-and-a-half. I made sure he was good and drunk too so he wouldn't freak out on me. It worked. I was totally prepared to take that secret to my grave if necessary.

Anyway, fast forward to today. I was cuddling with Harry, and saying all the things I say to him about will he be my best boy forever and never leave me and never get married or have kids and he can live in my basement forever and it will be mommy and Harry forever (I realize that I'm probably giving some therapist some work in the future- the first step in quitting this is admitting I have a problem), and he said yes, he will be my best boy forever and never leave me. And so I said, 'Why don't you want to leave me?' and he said 'Because I don't want to eat anybody else's food.'

Boy does this boy have his priorities right. And while I can cook without killing anyone in my family, and my meals have gotten more edible in the last five years or so, I am in no way a great cook. So I'm going to go ahead and think that he doesn't want to leave me because he can never find another woman like me so why even try and there's another thing to talk to his therapist about. Dammit.