What if its a girl?

As I sit here, the sole female in our family of 5 and 4 months pregnant, the thought occurred to me, "What if its a girl?"

I don't think that before I had children, I ever spend much time thinking about what it would mean to be the Mama of boys- 3 boys so far.  I think I spent more time thinking about whether I would be painting pink or blue then whether it would be years of guns, wars, train tracks, balls, blocks, and potty humor.  God has brought me on a greater adventure then I ever could have anticipated.  Yes, adventure is the right word.

The other day I told Charlie (my four year old) he was beautiful.  I told him that because he IS beautiful.  His reaction was pretty classic: first he laughed- clearly I must be joking!  There is no long flowing hair or pretty dresses or any of the things my boys think are beautiful.  Then, he acted insulted "I am NOT beautiful!  I am handsome."  Yes, Charlie, you are handsome, but you are beautiful in your own way, your boyish way.

Watching boys grow up before my eyes is like watching a similar but very differently wired species.  The books I think are interesting, they don't like.   The games they play, I simply don't get.   I remember Christmas morning the boys opened their new red guns that shot some kind of foam bullets and looked at each other with surprise and said "I can't believe we both got red, we are both BAD GUYS!"  (Who knew?)  The often physical, always humorous way they work out their difficulties and end the day as best buddies is often a mystery to me.   After a hormonally driven sentimental movie spree in which I made my boys watch "Beauty and the Beast" I asked them (hopefully) whether they liked the movie. After all, there is that ferocious beast and that final battle scene in which the Beast defeats the conceited Gaston.  Peter (age 5) pipes up, "Well.......  Kind of.....  You have to understand, Mom, we don't like princess movies, we are BOYS."   Oh well, so much for that. Back to Spidey, Xmen, and the normal assortment of fantastical adventures.   Just recently we were on a road trip and stopped to use the facilities.   I brought both boys into the single stall restroom and locked the door.  As I was helping Charlie wash his hands, and Peter was finishing up wiping, Peter suddenly jumped off the toilet, ran halfway across the small bathroom, and shot the remaining toilet paper basketball style into the toilet.  The scolding comment was about to penetrate my lips when Charlie's eyes lit up with brotherly admiration and he yelled loud enough for even the most distant customer to hear, "Peter!  You SCORED!!!"

And yet, as much as I sometimes feel like I am not dealing with my own kind, there is something very sweet and very simple about boys.  They don't expect me to understand their games, to know how to play like Daddy, to laugh at their potty humor and know which super-people have which powers.   Yet, at the end of the day, they always want their Mama.    Though they leap off my furniture with a single bound, though I can't trust them to be outside for more then two minutes without covering themselves head to toe with dirt and mud, and though they engage in regular combat that would make your average marine proud, they have a simple type of happiness that I envy.  They want full bellies, freedom to explore and play, and a Mama who is there to scrape off the bumps and bruises and set them back on their feet (so they can continue running).   They think I am the most beautiful woman in the world, (mostly because puberty is still a few years off), I have captured their heart, and I have no doubt each one would defend me against even the most dangerous of enemies.

Peter has judged (by the lack of visibly long hair in our last ultrasound picture) that our next addition will also be a boy.  "Mom, you don't expect me to play dollhouse all day, do you?", he retorted as if that was a sufficient explanation for his theory of his next little siblings gender.  Now I am not trying to be stereotypical, perhaps it would do my boys a little good to see a girl holding her own in their games.  And yet I wonder, "What if?"

Just this morning I told Charlie he stunk.  His eyes lit up as if he had won a prize and he smiled a smile so big as he plotted how to use his stink-breath to get his brothers.   Now THAT is beautiful.