Need some help (sensitive post)

So I had another ultrasound, and it turns out that I am two weeks further than they said I was. (I TOLD them so!)
It also turned out that the baby was a boy. While I know I shouldn't care at all and that my main focus should be on a healthy baby, I feel really dissapointed that this isn't a girl. I am, as you probably know if you read this blog, probably the most girly girl there is. I feel like my whole life I have been prepared to mother a little girl. I am also the first daughter of a first daughter, of a first daughter... all strong, special, kind, womanly women who passed on something to their daughters that can not be passed on to sons. Plus, I just want tea sets and pretty dresses and a child that is interested in some of the things that I am interested in. *chuckles* I love Joseph, and am interested in him and what he does, but trains and cars and dinosaurs and climbing... hmmm...

Considering my age and other practical circumstances, this might very well be our last child, though one never knows what God will decide. Anyhow, even IF there would be a third child, there would not be a guarantee that that is a girl. Besides... I want to rejoyce in this baby. Not the next.
Please... do not tell me how wonderful boys are. I HAVE a wonderful boy. Everybody who reads this blog knows how much I adore my wonderful boy. I also know that they will be friends. THough I honestly think they might be friends too if the next one was a girl.

I am asking two things of you if you read this: first.. pray for me. There are some things going on with me physically that I prefer not to speak of in such a private forum that make me over react to what is in reality is a little dissapointing, but no big deal. After all.. I love the little boy I already have, so two little boys will just mean twice the love. I just need to.. get there. But as I said, there are some physical things going on that are giving me serious trouble.
Secondly, do you know of some sites that are exclusively aimed at boys clothing and NICE boy clothing. Not just you know.. green onesies with a blue border and a giraffe that are supposed to be cute? I want to look at more.. elegant boy pictures, if that makes any sense.
Do you know any ways at all to help make me actually feel how special this little baby boy is going to be? I just keep having this horrible, horrible 'heir and a spare' feeling, and of course I am racked with guilt over feeling that way.

Elmo and soup st(r)ains...

I had an exhausting day today. This morning, I had a big suprise for Joseph. None other than ELMO and Grooverwould make a visit to our local childrens museum. We are members and go at least once every two weeks. Even without Elmo, it's a great place to visit. So Joseph was enthousiast about going shopping in the children's supermarket they have, the firetruck he could steer and the large blocks he could play with. But around 11 am... there was a big buzz in the middle of the museum where the enormous interactive statue of Eddie (biggest child ever, three stories high) sits patiently. Tables were set up where children could get a colouring page with Elmo's head.
About ten minutes later, Elmo and Groover made an appearance to a group of very enthousiast preschoolers and their mothers. After that a line formed to have your picture taken with Elmo and Groover. By some stroke of luck, we were pretty close to the beginning of the line, so I only had to keep my struggling todler in check for five to ten minutes. He usually is pretty well behaved, but he is very active and his enthousiasm for Elmo and Groover really overwhelmed any restraint. I held on tight to his hand, I hoisted him on my hip, I held him under my arms like a football, sang itsy bitsy spider, and less than ten minutes later it was our turn. We made the pictures and all seemed well in the world. And then... Joseph did not want to leave.

With him tucked under my arm, this time more like a squirming, squeeling piglet I took him away from the photo oportunity for a planned purchase of an Elmo figure at the museum shop. On the way there he escaped once and ran back to where he just came from. I nabbed him a few yards before he could disturb another childs oportunity. Once in the store, he was slightly distracted by the big button he was allowed to push that made the bright yellow schoolbus play the sesame street song. But never the less he escaped twice to run back.
It's hard to chase after a wayward todler when there are lots of other todlers afoot that you can not trample. Especially with a pregnant belly, a camerabag and a purse...

Joseph actually managed to get a second photo moment with Elmo (after all the other children had gotten their turn of course!) and we managed to leave the museum. My arms, my shoulders and my back were hurting!

By thie time it was evening, I felt too tired to cook. Luckily Friday is our vegetarian evening, and I had no more ambitious plans than vegetable soup. That should not have been hard. Vegetable soup is easy! Veggies, a potato, some stock, water, and letting it boil. Only for some weird reason I misjudged the water. I was getting frustrated. It was late. We should have eaten around 7 pm, maybe a bit later and it was getting close to eight. I offered my husband and child some cookies while they waited and felt like a failure.
While they munched on cookies, I blended the soup but it remained watery and apologized repeatedly to my husband who kept assuring me it was okay! I added more stock powder. It still didn't want to taste great and the texture remained less substantial than I wanted. I decided to try cornstarch, but that didn't seem to help either. Somehow I had developed tunnel vision. Wether or not I was a good wife and mother depended on this soup! Which halfway decent wife could not make vegetable soup and feed her family a healthy meal on time??
Maybe the cream I normally added would help. Maybe if I thickened the cream. After all.. it WAS heavy whipping cream, right? I whipped that cream with a tiny bit of the remaining corn starch/ soup liquid into a big fluffy mass.... which again took some muscle work. My poor biceps!!
Of course the nice fluffy cream immediately disolved into a thin white layer when I finally decided to serve the watery soup, with a thousand apologies. My husband kept saying that it was fine.

Only now, two hours after the soup was served and eaten, with Joseph slumbering peacefully in his bed, I can look back at myself and shake my head. What was I thinking? I had an exhausting day. A meal did not work out. I did my best. Nobody minded. I offer my family my love every single day. I offer them the best food I can give them. And if that soup ended up merely mediocre instead of good, well it certainly wasn't for lack of trying.
Being a good wife and mother is so much more than a bowl of soup. Somehow, I just lost sight of that for a few hours. And all it got me was sore arms and a bad mood. Would it not have been better to have served up the soup as it was, shrug and laugh about it and look in the pantry for extra popcorn for everyone?

The first day of school.... take two!

After the predicted heartbreaking farewell of Joseph's first day of school in the YMCA program, and the discovery that when I came to pick him up about 20 minutes early he was playing nicely... they told us at the end of that first schoolday that the program would cease to exist in less than two weeks time?
You can imagine how absolutely horrified I was, not as much because the program closed on us, but because they did not communicate this until AFTER the first day of school. With only four children enrolled they did not know this was a possibility the wednesday before at orientation? Or even that very morning when we went through all the difficulties of leaving our little boy in their hands for the very first time?

As upset as I was, I didn't have much time for anger, instead I had to find a new preschool program that still had a place open after the first day of school. Putting Joseph in preschool was not some offhanded decision. We truely considered his needs, his likes and dislikes, and what we wanted as a family. What I did not want was for Joseph to be away from mommy five days a week. Unfortunately, it seems that most preschool programs now operate on a five days a week basis. At two years old, he just seems to be too little for that. Luckily, I managed to find a preschool that still had openings. I read over their website, their core and value statements, their policies... and then I made the call. Unfortunately the answering machine picked up. The next day however, my beloved husband and I dropped by and found everything the way we wanted. A christian environment, experienced and kind staff, small groups and a lot of understanding, plus a two half day program.

So today, we repeated the heartbreaking scenario that every parent who sends their child off to school knows. Joseph cried as if we abandoned him in the desert. And of course we felt very bad. I kept my cellphone close by but resisted the urge to call the director who did her rounds every 35 minutes to hear how he was doing.
When I picked Joseph up, he was crying, but the teacher, Miss Mina, said that he had only just started crying together with some of the others when the first parents came for pick up. Aparently he had great fun. And... she had proof! Not only was there the picture Joseph had made (until you are a parent you can't really appreciate the loveliness of some random yellow lines on black paper!), there were the shapes he had glued, and the fingerprint he had made with paint, which had then been altered in a fish! And on top of that all... there were lots of pictures made with the digital camera in which I could see a smiling and very busy Joseph. When they told me they had played with bubbles outside, there was no more doubt in my mind. He had great fun.
That was confirmed when, upon leaving the building Joseph said: "Bye bye peaschool" "fu (n) peaschool!"

I am certain there will be some crying again next monday, but after a few more tries, I have the feeling he is going to ask about peaschool on days when it is 'just mommy!'.