Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice

I didn't expect to be the mother of a daughter. 

For many years, I was the very content mom of three noisy boys, and I loved that role.  It was kind of my "schtik", you know?  Snakes and snails and puppy dog tails, all the time.  Over the years, the part of me that once loved fairies and pigtails stepped aside willingly to allow for Hot Wheels and pirates.

And it was good.  Life was good.  I bristled when strangers observed my boy-filled grocery basket and remarked, "So, are you going to try for a girl?"

My family was just fine, thank you, and it felt complete.  I wouldn't have traded those three noisy boys for all the little girls in the world.  I still wouldn't.

And yet, for some reason, God unexpectedly saw fit to breathe a little pink into our lives.  Corrie has taken my life, her daddy's life, and her three brothers' lives, and she has turned us all inside-out-upside-down. 

She has sparkled since the day she was born.  She is as unashamedly girly as any little girl I've ever known.  She dances through our house in a cloud of pixie dust and hair bows.  She sings songs about "pwincesses".  She gasps when I put on my old house robe and exclaims, "Oh, Momma!  It's a boo-tiful dwess!"

She makes her daddy shake his head in utter wonder.  She makes her brothers a little softer, a little more protective. 

And she makes me dig deep into the pink part of my soul, the part that was asleep for so long, and she reminds me how fun it is to do fairy dances in the living room.

And it's even better in a pwincess dwess.