Thursday November 19th, 2015

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.