Sugar and spice.....

and all that's nice;
That's what little girls are made of.

I'm sure you have heard various people say "the Lord has a sense of humor". Well, I KNOW he does.

During both of my pregnancies, Jim and I just prayed for a healthy child. There are few true surprises left in the world, we decided to wait until delivery to find out the baby's gender. In May 1999 we were blessed with a healthy baby boy, Caleb Austin. My second pregnancy was exactly like the first, sooo, naturally I assumed we were having another boy. Fast forward to the delivery room....out comes the baby....and my first statement was, "THAT is NOT a boy". My doctor just laughed and said, "no it is not". And Jim was thrilled that we had the little girl he hoped for.

Now, don't get me wrong, I was very thankful for a beautiful healthy little girl. I just really had it in my mind we would have another boy. After all both my sisters had only boys, why would God give me the girl?! I had this tremendous fear in my mind about what in the world am I doing to do with this dainty little girl???

As most of you know, I have a twin sister. Growing up she was all lace and froof and I was all tomboy. I grew up climbing trees, spending most of my time outside, and played every sport from A-Z, and was quite good at them. I had Barbie, but also had GI Joe. I even collected baseball cards. My mother had to DRAG me to the Clinique counter as a junior in high school to buy me some make-up, because that's what girls do. I didn't like dressing up, make-up and my hairstyle was, of course, always plain....not big pageant hair, but just something plain and simple......which, yes, in the 80's was a mullet (but hey, it was the style). I could have been an LL Bean model for crying out loud!

Which brings me to now, and the revealing of the Lord's sense of humor, which began on July 2, 2001. Over the last 6 years I have learned to paint tiny finger and toe nails, put bows in hair on a moving target, pick out dresses/stockings/shoes that coordinate, and my most recent accomplishment: rolling hair in soft curlers. Yes, friends, these things can now go on my resume.....right after "knows every word to both High School Musical soundtracks"!

Thankfully, the Lord has blessed me with a wonderful daughter who is beautiful, funny, smart and sometimes sassy. But she is a great combination of tomboy and prissy, thank the Lord. She doesn't scream when she sees a frog, and has been known to pick one up to show Caleb. She is still the dirtiest child picked up at school. She is a good athlete and beginning in January she will try her hand at cheerleading (*sigh*). On the other hand, her only criteria for buying church shoes is that they are "tappy" on the floor. Then we have our girlie days that involves hair being "just so", princess dress-up, playing with Barbie, painting fingernails, and mixing and matching clothes....BTW ladies, if you don't match your panties to your shirt you are doing it wrong! Some days I get a glimpse of what my future holds.....pray now.

I have enjoyed having the only girl in the family....heaven knows she's not spoiled. Anyway, I hope as she grows up we learn something from each other....I can teach her how to do a jump-shot, but she will certainly have to learn make-up skills from someone else ( I have PLENTY of volunteers). I realize we have many battles to face, but I can't worry about those now. I pray that God gives me the strength I need to raise her not only to be a beautiful young lady, but to raise her to be a Godly woman.