It’s what we do

When P and I started dating eleven years ago, he didn’t know much about females. And by not much, I really mean nothing. It’s not like he hadn’t dated a few girls over the years, but when faced with choosing between listening to someone talk about her “feelings” or going to the ranch to hunt deer, I’m just saying that the deer hunting won out every time.

Every single time.

In fact, he was so clueless as to the female personality, that for the first year and a half we dated, he’d break up with me anytime I cried. He was convinced that something must be wrong with me because why was I crying? I finally had to tell him that sometimes girls just cry…it’s what we do, like putting on lipstick to go to the grocery store or trying on 47 pairs of shoes and not buying any of them.

The week before our ultrasound to find out if we were having a boy or a girl, P had been in charge of a ski trip for his high school students. At the last minute, his only female chaperone became really sick and couldn’t go on the trip, which left P with a busload of kids, two male leaders, and more importantly, about twelve 14 year old girls with no female leader. Since I was 5 months pregnant and not about to contort my body into a seat on a bus for 17 hours, he became their leader.

Every night during the trip, he would call and give me the report. One night the girls had convinced him that it would be fun to do everyone’s hair and he had ended up having his hair gelled, blowdried and straightened. Then he said someone pulled out a pair of scissors and they started actually cutting each other’s hair and naturally, one girl ended up in hysterical tears. I laughed and told him he was crazy. Everyone knows that you don’t let adolescent girls handle sharp utensils. No good can come from it.

A strange thing happened during that trip. P really began to appreciate how fun a group of girls can be, granted he also learned that they talk ALOT and can be slightly emotional especially in the face of a hair crisis, but when he came home he told me that he felt pretty sure that we were having a girl because this trip had obviously been God’s preparation for him.

Sure enough, we found out two days later that we were having a sweet baby girl.

Last night that sweet girl got in trouble for throwing a big, huge crying fit and later, when she had calmed down, P took her aside and said “I don’t want to punish you but you have to listen when we tell you to do something”.

She looked right at him and said “I know Daddy, but sometimes a girl just has to cry.”

That’s all I’ve been trying to say.