Happy Birthday Miss Mary!

Ah, Miss Mary, my baby, my sweetie, my princess girl. How could she be 4 years old already?

As I explained on Gabriel’s birthday Erik was really done after 4 children. I’m awful pregnant and the resulting babies– while being beautiful, lovely and wonderful– are also a whole lot of work time and money. So after Gabriel he was REALLY DONE.

Then, one night Erik woke me in the wee hours of the morning. Erik is a famously light sleeper while I could sleep quite comfortably in a train station during rush hour. “Do you see her? Do you see her?” He pointed to the corner of our bedroom. I saw nothing.

“It’s our little girl.”

The next morning Erik explained that he watched an 8 year old girl standing there for at least 20 minutes. She was in a white dress and looked just like me as a child. He was ready to have another baby.

So, several months later as we approached the ultrasound office we had an inkling we were having a girl. But we told each other as we walked in, “It’s a boy. We are having 6 boys and that will be fabulous(you know how I love my boys).”

The technician did all the usual measurements and asked, “So do you want to know?” I nodded.

“It’s a girl.”

I was absolutely speechless. I just lay there and wept.

——–

The preparations began: knitting pink sweaters, tying quilts, mulling over names and shopping, shopping, shopping! After years of shopping only one side of the store I went(and am still going), a bit crazy.

Princess girl made her arrival on a bleak winter day(I faked high blood pressure to get my doctor to induce me 2 weeks early), she was (short- 18″) and round (8’4″) and the most beautiful baby I had ever seen.

Mary was a hard baby and an even harder toddler. She came into this world knowing what she wants and how it should be done. I had imagined a sweet quiet little girl and not this crazy wild animal. But now, at 4, she is fiercely feminine (guarding her Barbies and dollies and tea parties from obnoxious brothers), incredibly smart and astoundingly sweet. She will probably never need as much sleep as most of us but she’ll also get more done.

Ah my baby girl, I love you, I love you exactly the way you are.