Spanning The Great Gender Divide

Trevor, although very excited about the little girl we're having in October, is having a little trouble wrapping his head around the concept of numerical gender equality in the Ray household.

Yesterday I went fabric shopping for the baby's nursery with Tiffany. We had a delightful time perusing the bolts and color matching, looking for just the right shade of deep pink to go with the pretty floral we'd selected. It was, without a doubt, a feminine fun-fest, and yet I naively expected Trevor to be equally tickled with the fabric samples I brought home. His initial reaction was somewhat less than thrilled.

I laid out all the cheerful pinks and greens on the bed. "So what do you think?"

Trevor looked at it, paused characteristically, and said, "Well, I guess she is a girl."

"Yes, Trevor, she is."

He stared at the assortment while I rambled on.

"So this is the main fabric-- we kind of based everything else on it. I saw this first and just loved it and so--

"This one?" He picked up the floral. "It looks like a couch."

"Are you serious?" I took a harder, squinted look at the sample. "A couch? No it doesn't." Satisfied at my own assesment, I blithely continued on. "So then we started to look for that darker color in the flowers, but they didn't have it, so we went--"

"So I guess you're planning on having her blonde then?"

That one really stopped me in my tracks. "Huh? What does that have to do with anything?"

"These colors just look kind of Swedish, or Anglo or something. To go with a blonde baby."

Never in my life had it occurred to me to decorate my nursery to match my baby. But now that he mentioned it.... I looked appraisingly at the little pile. "That's funny. Actually, I think it would look better with a dark-haired baby anyway." Suddenly, for some reason, I cared that he didn't think it would look good if our baby wasn't blonde. Wait! How was I letting myself get sucked in?

"Trevor...". I put on my pleading voice. "You're supposed to be excited. You're killing all my joy!

[sidenote: killing all the joy is a catch phrase in our marriage. It means one party's utter lack of enthusiasm is sucking all the life, happiness, and pleasure out of a subject the opposite party had previously been deriving satisfaction from].

You're supposed to be glad that I'm taking the time to look for fabric and planning everything to make a beautiful room for our daughter. You're supposed to say, 'Becky, thank you for being the kind of wife and mother that takes the time to beautify our home.' Now you say it, except in your own words. " I looked up at him, waiting expectantly.

He looked into my eager eyes. "Becky, I'm so glad you're planning this. Because if I did it with that fabric, I'm sure it would look like a couch, but I know you'll make it look nice."

I smiled, satisfied. I love Trevor's own words. He always delivers. Somehow, retaining all of his maleness, he spans the gap.