Impossibilities

Several winters ago, we received impossible news. The child in my womb was...  a girl! Geoff had told me from the very beginning that girls simply do not sprout from his genes. Having produced two darling lads, I had begun to believe him. I had also begun to feel a little defensive of my boys when people told me I needed to "try again for a girl."

So the news that "a girl" was just what we were having came as a shock. It just didn't seem possible!  I adjusted, however, and found myself, two weeks after Elisabeth's birth, marveling at how painfully adorable my daughter was in her first pink outfit, cute little yarn hat and all. I remember thinking how silly it was of me to have waited so long to put her in pink (she wore plenty of girl outfits, just not pink ones!) when pink looked so stinking good on her.  I can't track down the picture right now, but trust me, she was breathtakingly beautiful all wrapped up in pinkness.



 All of my reservations about pink dissipated in that moment, and I have never looked back. Our girl is free to be as girly as she wants...

...or doesn't want to be.

It no longer seems to me impossible, or even improbable, that Geoff and I produced a girl. What seems impossible is the notion that we might never have welcomed this girl into our family, that we might never have known her ups and downs, that we might never have laughed at her silliness, wiped away her tears, loved her and enjoyed her love.

She has enriched our family beyond measure. When I think now of what is possible or not, it seems impossible that we have been so richly blessed, not just with three marvelous sons but also with one amazing daughter. Impossible too, that our daughter is turning five already.

Happy birthday, Elisabeth!