As the season changes...

So does my perspective. Suddenly I looked at my belly yesterday and said, I'm sick of this, I want to see this child. This little person who is jabbing my side with his/her heel while sticking his/her butt up like a tower, might have hair right now and I want to know if it's a tow head like the other three. Is it a boy or a girl? What will it's name be? Are the toes just piled together like a haystack like the others? When it's been this long, it's hard to believe that this one might look just like the others. Every two years I cranked out a blonde haired blue eyed jewel... will this one wonder if he/she is even related? I remember being convinced as a child that I was adopted and my parents just weren't telling me the truth for some reason. My fantastical theory was based on the fact that my older siblings were more solidly built and had brown hair and I was a complete waif with pale blonde hair. I was sure that I was not related to them and anxiously waited for the day that Mom would sit me down to tell me where I came from. It never resonated with me that they were a normal size because they ate and I wasn't because I refused to eat. I think my perspective was that parents just told you things like that to make you eat. One day it occurred to me that perhaps there was a picture of Mom pregnant with me, if I were truly their child. I went through every picture album they had and found naught. Sometimes I would ask my mom about all of her pregnancies, little things just to see if she would slip up. If she voluntarily brought up her pregnancy with me I would listen very attentively for any contradictions or evidence. I honestly believed she was spinning a tale to convince me I belonged to them. I think I wanted to be adopted, probably so that my speculations would all be justified. I even came right out and asked Mom and Dad why I had blonde hair and they both always just laughed and said they had blonde hair when they were little too. I didn't believe them because Louis and Ginny had never had blonde hair in my memory. Then finally, when I was seven years old, my longstanding secret suspicion was put to rest. My mom had a baby and THIS baby had strawberry blonde hair and he was a giant baby weighing in at 11 pounds 5 ounces. Absolutely ANYTHING could come out of my parents, I was now thoroghly convinced.
Call me silly, but now that the girls are in school, I don't feel like such a spectacle. Walking around hugely pregnant holding a little boy's hand feels so normal. People assume he's my only child and that I'm overdue. It's a lovely charade, but only until people speak to me but because I am an attention hog. I always correct them and say that this is my fourth child and that I have several weeks left until my due date. It paralyzes most peoples vocal chords but they usually choke out a congratulation somehow.