The exercise:
Write something that has to do with: two of a kind.
I appreciate that there will be differences (likely many of them), but that's the best I could come up with for a somewhat appropriate prompt for today's writing.
Mine:
We are now, in case you haven't figured it out already, expecting our second son to arrive in early April. And as I said up there, I'm sure this little boy will be unique in ways I can't even imagine right now, with his own interests and personality and temperament. But at the end of the day, barring a mistake in the ultrasound reading, we're going to have a pair of boys to raise.
To be completely honest, my first reaction was disappointment. For a very long time my ideal picture of a family was one son and one daughter. Didn't matter the order, just wanted one of each. And I'm sad that I won't have the opportunity to raise a little girl. Because we are absolutely, one hundred percent done after this one. A family of four is great.
Also: we are not going through this whole pregnancy thing ever again. I speak for both of us on that one.
That initial feeling passed fairly quickly though, which I kind of figured it would. I'm getting excited about having another boy. Plus there's a comfort in knowing that we've been through this (at least the first three years) with a boy before. There will be new challenges and joys, obviously, but we've got the basics down. More or less.
Kat shared my disappointment as well, though I think it was stronger for her. Missing out on the mother-daughter bond is a tough one. I don't want to go into too much detail on her side of things, but I did want to mention the first response was mutual.
Things started really coming around for both of us when we sat down and started discussing potential names. I could feel the excite building. We've got a couple picked out already, with a clear front runner, but we'll be keeping that to ourselves until it is time to make it official.
I will say this though: after Kat informed Max that he was going to have a little brother, she asked him what he thought we should name him. His response?
"Max!"
No, sweetie. Just... no.
2 comments:
So... not a crocodile then? Now I'm disappointed too. Well, I can understand your initial disappointment, but I think you'll have, as you've noted, a slightly easier time with two kids of the same sex. If nothing else, you can reuse clothes without people looking at them and wondering what you're trying to make them grow up to be! As for names, well I'm with Max on that one. If you use the same name for them both then it makes getting their attention much, much easier. If they really have to have different names then make one Maxwell and the other Maximillian :)
Two of a kind
I have two chihuahuas, mother and son. They actually look very similar, even to me, to the extent that sometime if one of them comes and sits on my lap, or is hiding under a blanket with only a nose peeking out, I have to look carefully to see which one it is. However, most of the time they're easy to tell apart since Boy is slightly bigger than his mother, has sandy patches where she's more orange, a different-shaped head and is more openly affectionate.
That doesn't me stop me getting stopped regularly by strangers in the street telling me how cute they are (I know. I've been told too many times already, I definitely know) and then – and this is the weird thing – asking me if they're twins.
Dogs, as you probably know, litter puppies; they can have up to eight at a time. Dolly had five puppies (having seen the pregnancy I'd say that's probably at the upper end of what a chihuahua can be expected to have too; she was huge towards the end!) and when I tell you that, no-one says, "Oh she had quintuplets!" If I told you she had two puppies, you wouldn't say, "Oh, she had twins!"
Twins seems to be a term reserved for humans more than anything, and definitely carries a connotation of "two children where one is the norm". It simply doesn't apply to dogs, cats, elephants, sheep, goats (shall I continue?). It takes self-control to not roll my eyes when I'm asked the twins question again.
Luckily, however, answering that they're mother and son moves the conversation on to that instead as that is apparantly also remarkable (I sometimes wonder what world these people live in; I really do) and I continue to try and find reasons to escape, or at least justification for walking off.
Greg - hah, fat chance. Though perhaps now it's time to revisit my suggestion of Maximus...
Oh my lord. Twins? Seriously? It would never even occur to me to ask such a question regarding dogs. I just... wow.
I must say, though, that I do admire your self-control. I'm not sure I'd manage it by even the third time that happened. And, from the sounds of it, you are well past that number :)
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