Raising Strong Girls

In October of 2011, I ran the Milwaukee Marathon. I followed a training schedule and made sure I would be prepared for it. That meant giving up several long mornings to fit in 20-mile runs, which also left me pretty exhausted for the rest of the day. It was difficult balancing my family with my training. Months of preparation, both physically and mentally went into the run and I felt like it was a huge accomplishment. I was proud of myself. However, what made me the proudest was not that I finished for myself, or my husband, or the friends and kids on my cross country came who watched me run. It was seeing my three girls as I ran that last leg to the finish that brought tears to my eyes. Knowing that they saw their mom do something that a lot of people can't do and something that took determination and goals and literal blood, sweat and tears to do, made me feel like I accomplished something huge as a mom.

I often try to show my girls that women can do anything. I tell them they can be anything they want to be. They can be a doctor, a teacher, a firefighter, a waitress, or even the president. I make sure they know that I can do stuff around the house just like Daddy can and even though Daddy can run and bike faster than me, I still run and bike the hardest I can. This past week, I built a small brick wall by our patio and I had to chisel two bricks in half to complete it and Lydia told me there's no way I could cut a brick in half, but I made sure that once I did, she saw it and she knew that something she thought was impossible actually wasn't.

I let them choose to wear whatever they want. Audrey is a huge fan of dresses and skirts. For her birthday, she wanted a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle T-shirt. When the grandma of one of the kids who came to Audrey's birthday party asked me for some gift ideas, I listed a bunch of things and kind of threw that in as an afterthought, "Oh, you know what else? She said she wants a Ninja Turtle T-shirt." I'm so glad that grandma got Audrey not one but TWO Ninja Turtle T-shirts that Audrey just loves to wear. Often with skirts.

I know it's not a new idea to try to raise strong girls, but I feel like I didn't become a very strong person until later in life. Not any fault of my own mother, but I was just a very quiet kid and not very outgoing. I was very self-conscious.  Team sports embarrassed me because I was never as good as the other kids on the team. Individual sports were absolutely terrifying. I rarely spoke up for myself and was fine not rocking the boat. That's not how my girls are, and I hope they continue to be strong in whatever they do. And I hope that years down the road, they will be grateful for my role in what they became. 

Happy Mother's Day

I never thought I would have daughters. I always knew I would have kids, there was never a doubt in my mind that one of my callings in life was to be a mother. To sons. Not daughters. I knew I would have sons. Four of them, to be exact. I daydreamed of my little clan playing football in the back yard and wearing matching jerseys to baseball games. Aside from being athletes, they would also be very smart and have top-notch personalities.

I told people that I didn’t even know what I would do with a girl. I rarely wore make-up, my clothes were fairly basic, and accessories were an afterthought. Even my job, a construction engineer, required me to wear steel-toed boots and an over-sized fluorescent orange vest. I felt I would ruin a girl. I was too uncoordinated to be considered a tomboy, but I definitely was not a girly girl. I just didn’t care for girls, especially that six to nine year-old range where they play with Barbies and My Little Ponies. Luckily, Jayson felt the same way, and was looking forward to raising our brood of boys.

When I was pregnant with our first child, we did not find out the gender. Why would we? It was going to be a boy. I bought boy clothes, and to be safe, some that would be considered gender neutral just in case it was a girl. Of course, if it was a girl (which it wasn’t going to be), she wouldn’t wear pink anyway, since I despise pink. The nursery was painted green and yellow and the dresser was stocked with Milwaukee Brewers onesies and blue outfits with puppy dogs on them.

Then, Lydia was born.  Defiant from the start just by refusing a Y-chromosome, she was born when I was induced over a week past my due date. My mom, the mother of three girls, showered us with pink clothes. Dresses, rompers, ruffley socks, onesies that proclaimed “Born to Shop!” I remember my mom calling shortly after Lydia was born and she asked me what I was doing and I complained, “Laundry. A load of pinks.”

When Lydia started to lose that newborn squishiness and stretched out into the world a bit, I realized she was beautiful. Yes, I know all moms think their kids are beautiful, but at the risk of sounding like a huge jerk, mine really was.  She had enormous blue eyes surrounded by long dark eyelashes.  Her face had a tiny delicate nose and her chin was slight and angular.  When her hair grew in, it was a mop of amazing blonde ringlets. People would stop me to tell me how stunning she was.

Then a strange thing happened. I started to enjoy clothing her in frilly pink dresses. I attempted to tame those ringlets. I painted her fingernails. I embraced the girliness. Then an even stranger thing happened. I started to wear make-up. I cared about my clothes. I wore pink. Somehow, my daughter became an accessory and I felt obligated to live up to this amazing ornament I had been presented with. I felt like a frumpy housewife who had been given a designer purse and honey, I was going to work that purse.

I still held out hope that she would at least be athletic. We signed her up for soccer and showed up with a water bottle and goldfish crackers, ready to cheer on our protégé. We watched, horrified, as she hid behind trees and ate grass. We cringed as the team took a lap around the field and she was the caboose, looking dreamily at the clouds. We gave in when she asked to take dance lessons instead. I had envisioned cleats and cups, and I was now faced with a reality of tap shoes and tutus.

Jayson and I have obviously had two more girls since Lydia.  Audrey and Charlie. I have several sets of matching dresses for them. We have drawers full of hair ribbons and nail polish. We have more babydolls than we know what to do with, and even a couple Barbies and My Little Ponies.  Last spring, Lydia had her first dance recital the day after I gave birth to Charlie. I made Jayson bring Lydia to the hospital so I could do her hair and give her a little lipstick to wear.  

So, now I have my three girls who I love more than I ever could have imagined. We're done having kids, and I know Jayson is disappointed he doesn't have a boy, but I also know he would give his life for his girls, and I also know he isn't willing to try his luck on a fourth, for fear of ending up with twin girls. We are constantly amazed by the lives we have brought into this world, and every day is an adventure. We sit back and marvel at how quickly they learn, laugh at the goofy things they do, feel our hearts swell as they hug and love each other, and just try to soak it all up before we blink our eyes and they're teenagers.