It's Not too Late to Nurture the Child Inside

I'm just hanging around.

Don't ask why because I couldn't tell you ... but, at only 21 weeks along, I've washed and dried all of my first son's 0 to 9 month clothes. The newborn and small diapers and covers are also ready to go. Everything is just hanging around now ... waiting for a purpose.

My husband stopped me before I could set up the crib.

As I sorted through the clothes to determine what to keep and wash and what to give away, I did one other thing: I picked out the girl items.

When I was pregnant with my first child, most of my family was convinced that I was having a girl. They knitted pink blankets and bought pink clothes. After my son was born I gladly packed up all the pink and lace and put it away for another day.

I'm starting to think that day may not come.

I always saw myself as a mom of boys. And I am not at all surprised that my second child is a boy, nor could I be more delighted.

As excited as I am to be having another boy, however, I feel a loss in going through the girl clothes. Who knows, maybe I will decide to have another child and maybe she will be a girl, or maybe we'll adopt a girl, but I don't see any use in letting these unused clothes just hang around. So I put them away, along with the dreams of a girl who reflects both me and my husband in both her looks and personality, yet, grows into someone more unique than we could have imagined ... I can see her now: strong, self assured, intelligent ... the list goes on.

As I sit here and think of all the things I would want for my daughter, I think what I most want is to give a girl the parenting I didn't have. To nurture the traits that I've only stumbled across in my adult life ... traits which could have been developed from a young age, but went unnoticed.

The best thing I can do for my boys, for myself, is to take the love I feel for this child who doesn't exist and direct it toward the child within me. Not, the growing boy, the growing me.

Who knows, maybe she's still hanging around ... that special unique child who's longing for someone to see her just as she is ... I think I'll love me for me and nurture that which is longing inside to be recognized as strong, self assured, intelligent ...