Waiting for an incredibly overpriced meal at Rain Forest Cafe.
Eating her birthday sundae....she cried when another girl was brought out a huge princess cake with sparkler candles (her family obviously planned ahead). Russ and I made a mental note to quickly promise and find a cake afterward.
Swimming in the pool. One of the few times young pre-teen boys weren't jumping over their heads into the pool.
The only kid we were surprised with was Faith. We "tried" for the others. Emmy we were thrilled with being a girl. She could have all Faith's hand-me-downs, eventually they could share a room, and when our son was born as the third child, we could all live happily in our three-bedroom house forever and ever. So when we found out we were pregnant with baby number three, the boy planning began. We never even thought of girl names. I was prepared to buy all boy clothes. I had the nursery attire all picked out (thank GOD I didn't buy it!). We walked into that sonogram fully confident, all four of us, that we would walk out with pictures of our boy's junk sprawled out for the world to see (side note: why is it ok to show sonogram genitalia to anyone and everyone, is it only me that finds that odd? Like....just think about that for a minute...Oh yeah, here's my kid, here's their gender-specific parts. You wouldn't do that AFTER the baby was born, right? Just weird) The songographer starts scanning on the "area" and sure enough..I knew. My heart sank. I could feel the tears start to well in my eyes...it was another girl. She didn't even have to say it. Though she did...in fact, her exact words were "have you seen that movie "Little Women"? Well....looks like you guys will be living it!" Oh she was THRILLED for us. Faith was ticked. I thought Russ was going to throw the machine out the window. Emmy asked if we could just PRETEND she was a boy. I wanted to throw up. We got into the midwifes office, and the only thing Russ muttered was something about having to buy another gun...you know...one for each of them when the boy's come a calling:) I don't even remember anything else about our appointment I was so upset.
I went home and cried to my mom....cried to my BFF, cried to my cousin. I pretty much just cried for a week straight. I could NOT for the LIFE of me understand why God, who knew our hearts desire for a son, knew our hearts desire for my husbands name to be carried on for another generation, how He could do this to us. I was mad. Why did He give me yet ANOTHER girl. It just wasn't fair.
And then reality hit me square in the face. Here I was, crying like a spoiled little baby brat because how dare God give us this wonderful, precious, little girl, this beautiful perfect lady that he would entrust US to raise into a Godly young woman when all around me, couples were dealing with infertility, and miscarriages, and loss, or even babies who were born too early and had to stay in the NICU for weeks after, or had to have surgery in their first few months of life. I had a perfectly whole baby girl growing in my belly, and I didn't even thank Him for her. Ug.
I remember getting this realization, and crying in my computer chair while I typed a transcription on a woman who for the 4th time miscarried her 4th baby in the 5th month. I was at the same place in my pregnancy. I just cried with the headphones around my neck at my selfishness. I remember mumbling something to Russ about it and he came over and kissed my belly and told her we were so sorry for being hateful that she was a "she" and that was it:) We were *sort of* over it. I only say sort of because there was still that 1% chance in my mind that everyone was wrong which brought me even up to the point of her being born to asked the midwife to make sure she didn't have a little somethin' "extra".
To say that Maebree is magnetic is an understatement. Everyone, strangers, friends, her teachers at church, weird people in restaurants, they are all drawn to her. People who don't even like kids and just want to throw them in a garbage can are drawn to her (that's for you Stacia;). God's plans are always right, even if we think we hate them for awhile. That's the thing about God, he's ALWAYS right. No matter how annoying it is at the time, or what we think our plans could or should be, he ALWAYS knows what's right and best. And he was right when he gave us our squishy little "tater". She has this personality that is truly bigger than life. She is random and awesome and perfect and we wouldn't trade her for 1 billion of the best, perfectly breed boys in all the world.
