White Weddings and Baby Cribs

Little girls dream of their wedding day. The dress they will wear, the handsome groom waiting at the end of the aisle, the flowers, the church and so much more. I guess there was something a little different about me though. I didn't give a whole lot of thought to the wedding. I was too busy planning the nursery. What crib and colors I would use. How it would be arranged. Of course there were hours spent choosing names for all the children that would sleep in that nursery. As I got older I thought about how much fun it would be to have a car seat in the backseat and a diaper bag full of those tiny diapers and little clothes. When I tried to imagine my children it was usually the back of a little girl playing on the floor of a bedroom. She had long, straight brown hair.

As so often happens in life, reality eventually set in. That crib cost money and we didn't even have a house to put it in when our firstborn came along. So he got it for his first Christmas gift. The car seat was heavy to lug around and all those tiny diapers eventually got dirty - as did the little clothes! And finally, that little girl with the long brown hair was actually a blond little boy. Then it was two little blond boys.

Even though reality was very different from the dream, life was good. We had everything we needed. Those little boys made us laugh and kept me busy. Something inside of me though was missing that brown haired little girl. Where was she? Who was she? Would she ever be more than just a figment of my imagination? I worried that those little boys would grow and not need me anymore. They would not have any interest in baking or cleaning with me and they most definitely would never have hair I could braid and put ribbons in! I dreaded the day they would be too busy for me and I'd be alone with my interests. It was a sadness that is hard to explain.

Then as I stood at the kitchen sink washing dishes last night it suddenly dawned on me. My dream was unfolding before me. You see, my little brown haired girl sat on the counter in front of me with a dish towel in her hand happily drying the dishes for me and chatting away. When she asked if the boys used to dry the dishes when they were little like her I told her that no, boys weren't usually interested in that sort of thing. Then I contentedly smiled as she simply stated that she thought that was strange. The boys were in the other room laughing with their dad over video games and it was then that I realized what I had - that I wasn't alone.