I'm a girl factory

I have an old friend who just gave birth to her second son this year. Another acquaintance is having his third boy. The neighbors downstairs had two boys too. But me? I'm a "girl factory" as my colleagues at work put it when I told them.

Last week Epp had to go to the hospital, or, more specifically, the women's clinic to rest. Without going into all the details, she needed to get off her feet for awhile. But during her stay they did an ultrasound and it turns out that there is a 95 percent chance we are having another little girl.

This is good for several reasons. The first is that we have boxes and boxes and boxes of barely used baby girl clothing. We also have femininely-inclined toys, princess castles, DVDs, and a very doting grandmother who likes to buy pink things.

Also good is that this also works with our family dynamic of having all the females in my life dump their estrogen-induced fury on me when they feel like it. Because I am accustomed to this, what's one more female in my life crying at the same time as all the others?

Third, perhaps most beneficial, is that I make a pretty lousy male role model. I don't watch organized sports, I'm not that handy with a drill, I can't take a car apart and put it back together, hell, I haven't tied a tie in awhile, and I am not sure if I could if I had to do it right now. In other words, I have no skills to pass on. If we had a son, it's highly likely that he would have a better grip on fixing household appliances than I would. Now, I can write songs and I am a talented writer and journalist. But if your car breaks down, you can't sing it back to life again.

Which leads me to think, are we given children of certain genders for certain reasons? Do certain dads get sons because they have skills to pass on, while other dads get daughters because they are better at dealing with estrogen-induced fury? Maybe so.

Anyway, I can officially stop banging my head against the wall now. This girl will be called Anna.