My Sweet Girl

I'm a few days late.  Both the boys got their blogs on their birthdays.  

The past few days have been pretty crazy.  As usual.  

Summer is here, the days are longer, the activity is constant.  

But on Monday, my sweet girl, Olivia turned 6.

I remember when we decided we'd try to get pregnant with her.  It was a long journey.  Logan just sort of "happened".  With Olivia, it was stress, worry, anxiety, too many pregnancy tests and too much research.  I just got too psyched up.

18 months and 3 rounds of fertility medication later, we were pregnant with our second baby.

Right before we found out we were to have our second child, our truck died, our dog died, we took possession of our new home and moved.  Ten days after all that upheaval, I got a positive pregnancy test.

Then the comments started.

"You're going to have a girl!"  "Just wait, girls are so tough!"  "oh man... I know it's a girl!"

Like having a girl was a curse?  How hard can girls be?  Girls are sweet, aren't they?  I get to let her hair grow, get cute little dresses, have fun with her.  Right?  

Well...having a girl ISN'T a curse.  Girls are tough, but they are wonderful.  Having a daughter has brought me more joy in my life than I thought possible.  The possibilities are endless in our relationship.

I'm not a girly girl.  But having a daughter has helped me get back in touch with my feminine side.  It's shown me what it means to being a girl, growing up to be a lady.  There's nothing wrong with teaching her to be a lady.  

Olivia is strong.  She's stubborn, hard headed, loud and honest.  She's beautiful.  She has beautiful blue eyes, fringed by a dark blonde eyelashes, long blonde hair that has lightened in the sun as she spends as much time as possible outside.  She has the cutest little nose, and the sweetest smile.  She's smart.  She puzzles things out quickly, can add and subtract basic numbers already and loves to read.  She loves to be pretty.  Doing her nails, hair, make up, getting dressed up, those make her so happy.  She's scruffy.  As much as she likes doing her hair, she hates brushing it.  She gets filthy, quite happily, as she plays in the sand or the mud.  She can stand up for herself.  She knows who she is and is very confident in herself.

She's so emotional.  Anything can set off a tantrum full of tears and screaming.  

She's sensitive.  Sometimes, the smallest harm coming to something or someone else can set her to tears, worrying about how they are feeling.

She's friendly.  A little shy sometimes, but she can be won over with a smile and a joke.  But she's still cautious.  

She cuddles and loves big.  She loves her stuffed animals and tea sets.  Loves to have little tea parties in her bed at night with her "friends".  

I'm looking forward to watching her grow.  I'm looking forward to watching her change, explore, learn.  

I'm looking forward to her first boyfriend.  And I'm not looking forward to her first boyfriend.  I'm not looking forward to her first heartbreak, but I will be there when it happens, telling her how she's good enough and someone out there will one day love her for her intelligence, beauty and strength.

I'm looking forward to her first baby.  That experience that blows away most mothers.  That moment, through all the pain and strain of labour, only to have that all blow away in a millisecond, as they place that baby in her arms and she looks at her firstborn.  

It's because of Olivia that I know that feeling of pain and then extreme, rapid euphoria.  I didn't have the epidural when I had her.  I felt no less love for my boys with the epidural, but my birth experience with Olivia was incredibly different because of the lack of pain intervention.  While I LOVED having the epidural, I'm very glad I had the experience of birth without one.  It taught me a lot.

I just want her to grow up, happy, confident.  I never want her to dumb herself down for a boy.  She should never settle for mediocrity.  She should always strive for the best in herself and in others.  I hope that she won't suffer self esteem issues to the degree we see young girls suffer from them today.  It would be naive to assume that she will never suffer from self esteem issues, but I want her to be able to overcome them with dignity and grace.  I just don't want her to bring herself down to please others around her.  I want her to live with as few regrets as possible.  I want her to be active, enjoy the outdoors, take pleasure in the small things.  

It's amazing how differently we view our daughters compared to our sons.  I know I worry more about Olivia in the psychological sense.  Girls don't fight outright normally.  It's psychological warfare within the community of girls.  And unlike the days when I grew up, it's almost impossible to avoid it.  Social media creates a world in which they are in constant connection with people and how they think.  

It will all be a case of guidance.  Teaching her that there are few people in the world who's opinion really matters.  And that she has the control to give those people the power to influence her and her opinions.  

It's a scary world.  But Olivia has a world of opportunity facing her.  There are still barriers that she has to face in the future.  Hopefully, if we are proactive, those barriers won't be there or as hard to scale, but if we teach her to draw from her own strength, she will make it.  

Happy birthday Princess.  Life is just so much better with you in it!