My husband is a planner. He always needs to know what the plan is. Whenever his sister and I take a trip to the mall to hang out and browse, he asks us our plan. We always answer the same way. We "plan" to hang out and browse. It drives him crazy!
I should clarify something. I am terrible at making active plans. When I do plan something I usually leave some really important part out or go way overboard on tiny unimportant details. It all falls apart. Which is of course why I don't like to plan anything. And I am lazy.
I am really good at making passive plans. By that I mean that I simply expect things to go a certain way without any direction or interference from me. It should just happen. You know?
Drives my husband crazy!
Perfect example.
Tomorrow I will have my 20 week ultrasound. Long before I even got pregnant, I came across the idea for a "gender reveal party" on Pinterest. Complete with a cake revealing the gender when cut. Genius! It seemed so perfect.
See, I have always thought all babies should have some sort of baby shower or party. Not to be showered with gifts. Simply so that someday when baby # anything but 1 gets older and starts looking at the photo album, they are reminded that we did indeed celebrate them. We were just as excited about this baby as we were about our first. This occasion deserves a celebration just as much as that one.
The catch is planning a baby celebration in which you tell everyone to come party but we really truly don't need more stuff. Not that I don't think the new baby doesn't deserve presents or whatever. But honestly we already have the stuff.
Gender reveal seems perfect. In fact I have been a bit on the fence about finding out the gender or not. With the Peanut we waited. It was such a great experience to find out at his birth. To hear the "It's a boy!" for the first time. With the Princess we found out right away. It was just the most practical thing. We wanted to know if we needed girl clothes or if we were set with the boy clothes. That was awesome too. All the excitement and anticipation of actually being able to shop for girly stuff. My poor Peanut had to wear nothing but green for the first 6 months or so of his life.
This time we have all the stuff for a boy or a girl. So we could go either way. The thing that is pushing me more towards the find out is just knowing which stuff to unpack and have ready. Because I would rather have the stuff ready before I have the added chaos of no sleep. I mean I guess I could just get out all the Peanut's gender neutral stuff and then if it's a girl I can have more time to get all the girl stuff out...
But what if we have the sonogram but instead of finding out right away, we have the doctor write down the gender. Then we throw a party and everyone can find out together! Perfect!! Let it be done.
What? I need to plan that? And I would have to clean my house?! Oh.
Ok, in my defense... Father's Day is this weekend. We can't have a gender reveal on Father's Day. People might want to actually spend that day, you know, celebrating their fathers.
Then the following weekend is book club. So that's out.
So, now we are looking at three weeks away. Assuming something else doesn't come up. What? Am I over-thinking? More importantly, are we really going to be able to wait that long?! I mean we will have that little piece of paper tempting us, taunting us. Can we really resist??
Here's my new plan. And by plan I really mean idea. Thought. That I will somehow dream into being.
This weekend we are going to my in-law's house to celebrate Father's Day. I figure this is the closest thing to a party, that is going to plan itself, I am going to get. Plus, wouldn't finding out the gender of the baby make a great Father's Day gift?! Bonus not feeling guilt about my lack of gift for my husband and father-in-law and dad. I figure we can even let the Peanut make the announcement.
We did something similar on Easter. We had the family over and the Peanut told everyone, "Mama is going to have a baby." Then we called the family members who weren't there and he told them the good news.
Sounds like a good idea. Right? Then the following week I can tell everyone at book club and then I can post something to Facebook, which should probably include an actual announcement that we are in fact having a baby... and of course I can make the big blog reveal! Super exciting.
Now this is where you all get to convince me that finding out with the family is just good as the whole gender reveal with a cake and all that stuff. And someday when the baby asks about their celebration I can tell him or her all about the plans I had and he or she will be all, "Oh, that's so awesome! You were so excited about me you actually thought about doing something."
No guilt here. None at all...
Also, now is your chance to guess. Boy or girl?
