The next phase

We’re having a baby boy. We’re excited and scared and overwhelmed and underprepared. Mostly excited, but it’s taken me a little while to get here.

I have two young girls. They are my world—a world I never could have imagined for myself. It is a world of tea parties, ballet, Barbie dolls, pink-pink-pink, and Disney princesses galore.

When I found out I was pregnant with my first child, I vowed that I would resist these girly stereotypes. I fought them for a while, but when I saw how happy Boo was cradling her baby dolls, or heard her sing the entire Frozen soundtrack, not only did I cave, but I learned to embrace them. Turns out pink is actually a very beautiful colour—for clothes, décor, and everything else.

When my second daughter arrived, I was prepared for and excited about these stereotypes. More dresses! More pink! More girls! And Little E continues to love this world she born into. She is obsessed with dolls and shoes and smearing “lipstick” all over her cheeks.

Now something new is on the horizon.

I know little boys play with dolls and shoes and love pink. I sure hope mine does. I sure hope he loves Disney princesses as much as his big sisters. But he won’t wear their pink dresses and tutus and hair bows (unless he wants to). And so I am packing up some of these outfits.

This is proving to be a much more difficult task than I ever thought possible. I hate that I have formed such an emotional attachment to silly little objects; most don’t even hold a memory—they lie unworn, with the tags still on. But it’s a fact that a door is closing in my life. I will never have another little baby girl. Sometimes this makes me cry. I am not sad that I am having a little boy, just sad that I am not having a little girl. That door is closed.

I’m excited to see what’s behind the next door.