I have written many times about my baby girl so it would be redundant to allow myself to do it again……but who cares if I am redundant? I have been redundant many times, actually over and over again to the point of redundancy!

Today is the eve of my baby girls twenty-sixth birthday, on August 12, 1986 my world became more sunshinny…..(yes it is a word now!) This baby girl of mine was the only child that I actually set out to have….I mean decided one day…”hmmm, I think I want to try again to have a girl this time!”All the trauma from my first child had gone by the wayside already. He was beautiful and healthy and the love of my life (sorry husband, not leaving you out of course!) but, this kid was my lil’ boy and he was rough and tumble just like he was supposed to be.

I had a predestined design for my children…they were to be blond like their daddy (why do you think I married a blonde…because I loved him, of course) my favorite first reason and the second was I wanted blonde babies which worked perfectly until my third one who sneaked in right after baby girl and turned out with brown hair and a lefty! I blame my sister-in-law who was with me in the operating room because I had a C-sections; she had brown-hair back then before she went blonde (like me, must be a mid-life thing..lol) and a lefty! Apparently I am not the boss of me…..I forgot about genes and my side of the family which no one is blonde….oops! okay too much info I am sure but my point is, I had a plan!

As I was saying…..I was ready for another one and I knew in my knower that she was going to be a girl. I planned her nursery with pink tiny flowered wallpaper and white chair rail and a flow y flowery ribbony daisy batch of flowers on the border that I put at chair rail height. (This was back in the ’80’s when wallpaper borders were in!) I told everyone she was a girl before I knew because I knew and of course…as usual I was right. Never wondered for a minute!

So here she came, her skin was pink and like velvet and her hair really blonde. Even more than my little boy! She was a living doll. I was never more happy and I felt like I had completed my family…one boy, one girl, he was named after daddy and she was named after mommy and neat as a pin and we were thrilled. This baby girl was going to be everything I wasn’t. She was going to be totally girlie but could whip a boy if needed while all the time never sweating. She was going to love to wear pink and all the girls would love her and all the boys would want to be her boyfriend.

Well, then I woke up…back to I am not the boss! Wake up call Mom!! They are what they are, not what we want them to be….grrrrr. I hate it when that happens! Actually my baby girl did wear pink until she decided purple was better, then that wore off and I had no say about it ever again and she was totally girlie but tough also and could beat up any boy. All the girls didn’t love her; many were jealous because she is so pretty, naturally and too kind-hearted and all the boys (because boys are stupid at every age! just sayin’!) didn’t want to be her boyfriend…she had her heart-broken, as we all have many times. But what she did become was a friend to the friendless, a defender of the defenseless and a strong and compassionate heart who I would rather spend time with than anyone I know.

Tomorrow is her birthday. No gift could be enough. Words are not even enough. I know I have put her through all kinds of frustrations and hell (I am the mother, it is my job!) and she has given it back to me as well (just keepin’ it real!) but, when the day comes that she is blessed with a baby girl, I hope she thinks back to me and remembers that I picked her out special, named her special, and I consider her my greatest joy. There is nothing like having a girl, every time I look at her my whole life passes before my eyes and I wish beyond anything I could have kept her from all the troubles of life. I couldn’t though I tried hard to shelter her and the boys….probably never really did that great of job at it but, when you are given such a gift…a treasure…all you want to do is keep it safe.

Happy Birthday………

dear baby girl, Bethany Rose Fritts!