Tracy’s dad and Patty (stepmom) spent a couple of nights with us last week. Everyone, including them, is so anxious to know if the baby is a boy or a girl. There really is no sure fire way to know without doing crazy tests with needles, so that’s out. However, when you work with a bunch of women, you learn about several methods that supposedly determine the sex of the baby. Everyone swears by them. I had heard about the pencil test, the drano test, the ring test, the needle test, and the list goes on. At breakfast with my in-laws on Friday morning, Patty began telling us about the pencil test and how it worked on everyone at her job. I don’t know who was more excited about doing the pencil test, Tracy or his dad. So, when we got home I pulled out a pencil, some string, and a sewing needle. The object is to rig up these three items and create a dangling baby prediction device. You hold the threaded pencil over the pregnant person’s right wrist. If the pencil begins to move in a pendulum motion, the baby is a boy. If it moves in a circle, it’s a girl. Tracy patiently held the pencil over my wrist and waited for it to stop spinning. Finally, the pencil stopped, then it begin to take on a swinging pendulum motion. Tracy’s dad says he knows it’s going to be a boy. His theory is that if the first born on both parents’ sides of the family is a boy, the expectant mother will also have a boy. If both are girls, oh you get the picture. So, I don’t know. I do know we still don’t have a boy name, and if we don’t come up with one, we may have to resort to Chris Johnston’s list which will create a lifetime of questions for our child. 3 more weeks and we will see if the ultrasound method gets us any closer to being at least 90% sure of the sex.

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