My Girl

I was going to write about my New Year's Resolutions today and then I realized, heh, I used the F word twelve hours into the new year during that game and why bother eating healthfully if we're all just destined to disappear in 2012 anyway?

Instead, I'm going to write the post that's been swirling in my head for a while now. The one I've been hesitant to write for fear of upsetting some of my readers. The one that will finally separate me once and for all from all the boymoms in the world. You know, if anyone is actually still reading my drivel.

Can I just say how much I love my daughter?



Oh, I love my boys too. But my daughter? I didn't know what I was missing.

The hairbows....so cute.

The babydolls....so fun.

Shopping on the left side of Carters.....full of the awesomeness.

But the best thing? The best thing is just having her around. She gets me. I get her. I am no longer outnumbered in this house full of testosterone.

I spent my entire pregnancy telling myself that I would adore the little boy that I may have been carrying. I picked him an awesome name (two actually), set up his true blue room, and waited to complete our Y-chromosome heavy family. On the morning my daughter was born, making our way to the hospital in the near-dawn darkness, I cried. I sobbed actually. The whole way there. I cried for my daughter. The one I never thought I'd have. It was a secret between my husband and me, a secret we'd never tell our third son. Then we checked in, got plugged up, and wheeled in to have our baby with smiles on our faces. I was ready to meet our boy, I really was. I knew I loved him, I'd been with him for months. But when that doctor said it was a girl..twice, I cried. I sobbed actually. It was one of the happiest moments of my life.*

In those first weeks after she was born, in my vicodin-induced happy haze, I'd just look at her and thank God for giving me a girl. I'd wake up each morning and remember, OMG! I have a daughter!, and it'd make me just a little happier while swaying and shushing the colic away.

I miss my baby girl, but I love my little girl.

I love how she wants me to comb her hair so she can be bootiful.

I love seeing her baby dolls neatly covered and kept warm.

I love hearing her sing. Anything.

I love it when she kisses her brothers. And I love it more that they kiss her back with so much adoration.

I love the princess costumes, ponytails, and the at-home manicures on itty-bitty nails.

When Santa left his loot under our tree Christmas morning, I teared up seeing the mass of pink at one side. At one time I never thought I'd see that, the things I loved, the things I know, being loved by someone else I love. I loved seeing her ooh and aah over her girly things and I loved even more watching her move to each of her brothers and do the same with them.

I wake up in the morning now and I am no longer surprised to have a girl in my house, but I do give thanks every morning for her. And her brothers too. I cannot even imagine what life wouldn've been like if she'd been a boy. It just seems like Elizabeth was always meant to be with us.

But I still really love shopping on the left side of Carters.


*And because I'm sure someone will wonder, I was happy birthing my other two children, but the first one came eight weeks early and was rushed to the NICU immediately which was very stressful and wondering about him for six hours before anyone told me anything didn't make for a happy morning. When the second one came, I had complications that caused a prolonged postop situation and some crazy drugs that kept me from really knowing what was going on until late that afternoon, so yeah, the third birth, AWESOME.