My Pink Heaven — When Life Gives You Girls

2

girls, beachHere’s the deal: I wanted boys.

Let me backtrack a bit. I may be a new writer for the BTV Moms Blog, but I am a longtime reader. What keeps me coming back to peruse the stories shared here? What motivated me to submit an application in the hopes of joining this brave group of women? The unfiltered, tell-it-like-it-is honesty. Post after post, these ladies are keeping it real and it’s wonderfully refreshing. So, right here, right now, I am making a commitment to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, so help me mama karma.

Which brings me back to my confession: I really, really wanted boys.

I’m what people would call a guy’s gal. As early as elementary school, I was hanging out with the boys in suburban New York, playing tag and watching He-Man. Maybe it’s because I have two brothers. Maybe it was because I was a ballet dancer and I didn’t want to be stereotyped. Or maybe it was because I was a little boy-crazy from the start and the boys in my neighborhood were super cute with their feathered hair and back-pocket combs. Fast-forward to college, where I made an effort to add more “sisters” into my life by joining a sorority, but ended up more chummy with the guys pledging our “big brother” fraternity, one of whom would become my husband almost 20 years later. Yes, I did have some women in my life that I was deeply close with, but these special relationships were few and far between. Plus, many of them had turned into long-distance situations once my husband and I moved to Vermont in 2010. My biggest hobbies, going to Phish shows and playing pool, didn’t exactly up the estrogen flow in my circles.

Naturally, when I thought of having children, I pictured little dudes.

I pictured their hands in the dirt, digging for worms. I pictured my mud room a mess of lacrosse sticks and stinky sneakers. I pictured summer weekends rooting for Dad on the baseball field and autumn Sundays watching football in our pajamas. What can I say, I wanted boys. With my first, I just knew before I even peed on the stick. My husband woke up the morning after our boozy date night to find me propped up on one elbow next to him, eyes wide open.

“I’m pregnant. It’s a girl,” I announced.

Two things happened when my daughter, Violet, was born in June of 2012. One, she inducted me into mommyhood and I met new amazing women every single day, some of which have entered into that sacred category of true friendship. Two, I discovered that I loved having a daughter and I kinda sorta wanted another one.

But here’s where I’m going to dish out some hard truth.

This is something I didn’t tell anyone, not even my husband. When I became pregnant for the second time in 2014, even though I kinda sorta wanted another girl and that’s what I claimed to anyone who would listen…

I still wanted a boy so much more.

Above all, I was desperate to add that father and son dynamic into my family. And a tiny part of me thought that maybe I was carrying a son. Luckily, I didn’t have to wait very long to find out the gender  — one of the perks of being an older mom. About a week after my blood test, my husband and I eagerly put the nurse on speakerphone to reveal the fate of our family, and I willed her to speak the word boy. Boy. BOY.

I could barely make out what she was saying over the pounding in my chest, and then the words tumbled out, clear as a bell: “…and, it is another little girl!”

What happened next completely shocked me. In that moment, my heart literally burst with joy. Seriously, my heart actually exploded into hundreds of tiny pieces that radiated out like fireworks and filled my insides with the glorious warmth of what can only be described as pure happiness. My family was complete. I was the mama of two girls. Violet had a sister on the way. A sister, you guys! Do you know what an amazing gift that is? Meanwhile, my husband would be surrounded by three ladies that adore him. Can a man get any luckier?

girls, blanket
Violet & Sabine (Mini Mi Photography)

Instantly, my head was filled with new images. I pictured Dad flipping pancakes in the kitchen the morning after a slumber party. I pictured polka-dot manicures and sparkly diaries with miniature locks on them. I pictured my baby girls as grown women, the three of us sharing a bottle of wine on the front porch. dad, daughter, baseball

And yet, some of my old visions for the future didn’t change at all.

Those little hands in search of worms? Still there, explaining to me that the worms are babies and the snakes are their mamas. Dad’s baseball weekends? Yep, those are happening.   woman, girls

I’m a mama of girls and I wouldn’t want it any other way. I could go on and on about the joys of having two daughters, but I have to wrap this up. Because it’s November. And it’s Sunday. And, today, Violet’s rooting for the Bumblebees, er, I mean Steelers.

2 COMMENTS

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here