Cleaning up around the house just now on a Saturday evening, I was putting away a pair of pink sunglasses, a flowered blanket and a stuffed unicorn and had to grin. I love having a girl.
We have two sons who are 13 and nine years old and people often ask me if it’s different having a girl. I have noticed a few things.
One, she’s incredibly empathetic and if someone appears to be in distress, she cries out and is visibly upset. Even if her brothers are play fighting, she’ll yell if it gets too intense. Second, some of her developmental milestones have been different. While she took to walking late, she started hugging, clapping and waving way before her brothers did. She also shocked me at a very early age when she picked up a pen and started drawing on a piece of paper. She still loves scribbling on my day planner or grocery list. Third, she loves dolls. I gave our first son a doll dressed in camouflage overalls but he never picked it up. With our daughter, her cousin gave her a not-so-gently-used baby doll at her first birthday party and she started clinging to it immediately and has loved dolls ever since.
I’m a girlie girl myself and while I took my boys everywhere when they were little, with Kate it’s especially fun when she attends life group every week among 12 ladies or comes along on shopping trips or attends a tea party with me. My lady friends fuss over her, celebrate in her every achievement and go to great lengths to make her smile. They even randomly buy her clothes and toys! A lot of that also happened with our boys but it’s different because she’s “one of the girls.”
Dressing her in dresses, head bands, cute shoes and accessories is a big bonus. She’s my real-life doll like the ones I toted around (with a fully stocked diaper bag and a stroller) as a little girl. She’s already putting her play purse over her arm, picking up her baby and saying “bye bye” as we head off to the store, playing the part of Mommy just like I did.
I’m close to my mom who’s close to her mom and I always hoped to have a daughter to pass it on to. People often tell me she looks at me adoringly and she definitely prefers my arms to anyone else’s so it seems to be working.
I love being a boy mom and always wanted to experience mothering a daughter, too. I have relished the last 14 months and even though she’s changing so fast, I feel so much joy when I think of all the adventures we’ll have together. Everyone told me how much I’d love mothering a daughter and boy (or girl) were they right.
