Cute girl scouts

So I don't know if you remember, but I was rather reluctant to have a girl.

It seems like a really long time ago, now that I have Lily and I LOVE Lily and I even sometimes Like Lily (at least 50% of the time). But when I found out I was pregnant with Andrew, my dad said, "It's going to be a boy. You just aren't the mother of girls." And I kind of agreed. And Andrew was a boy and everything was hunky-dory. Then, when I got knocked up again, I decided that I really wanted another boy, because I STILL wasn't meant to be a mother of girls but now I actually had a boy with boy toys and experience shielding my face from little boy fountains on changing tables etc. And I really really wanted bunk beds in a room full of dinosaurs. Plan ahead, much? But we found out it was a girl. Definitely a girl. And I was very excited by the time she arrived in a blast of painful glory 20 weeks later. But I was still full of regret for her...because as far as mothers of girls go, she really got dealt a crappy hand.

I think my first moment of sheer JOY at her gender was at Thanksgiving, when she was 6 weeks old (give me a break...I was full of JOY at Lily...but I was moving hundreds of miles away at the time and didn't have the proper ability to appreciate her gender yet...). Anyway, I was making Thanksgiving dinner, and I was preparing the French stuffing that my mother (actually my Memere) always made for the meal. It is one of those passed down recipes that usually really frustrate me...no real quantities, everything made to taste, etc. The first year I made it out in CA, it took a lot of coaching from my mom over the phone to get it right...and it really wasn't until the 2nd year that I got it right. Not something you can just get from a cookbook. And I remember making it and looking up at my teeny tiny baby girl sitting in the bouncer and realizing, "Oh! Now I have someone to pass this recipe along to!" And I know that you can pass recipes along to your daughters-in-laws or whatev'...but it was MY MOMENT...my big moment of realizing that having a daughter was not always about painting toenails or doing makeup or tutus or shopping sprees. That even a poor excuse for a woman like me had things to teach her daughter.

It has been over 2 years since that moment. I am now VERY glad to have a little girl in the house (really ever since Andrew started standing up to pee...). Lily is MY little girl, which means she tackles and wears sweat pants and has hair in her face and is loud and opinionated and just perfect. She has only 2 pairs of shoes...and she refuses to wear one of them. She loves watching Toy Story and Cars and she loves loves loves to read books. She is just the perfect girl for me. But I still have moments when I get hit over the head with how great little girls are.

Girl scouts came to our door last weekend. Two little girls probably about 7 or 8...their mom parked out in the street because it was so cold. One little girl hands me the sheet with all the cookies and starts to say earnestly, "Hello! These are girl scout cookies and they're really good. This one is minty and tastes great with hot cocoa. But if you like tea, these two are really good to pick. And this one used to be called Samoa." A very strong sales pitch.

Oh. My. God. It. Was. The Cutest. Thing. Ever.

And it worked. I bought a TON of cookies from these two sweet little things who acted as if they were the very first girl scouts I'd ever bought cookies from. "Good with tea!" Imagine!

And so I had another MOMENT (I would say A-Ha moment, but I'm afraid that Oprah has people watching the internet, and she'll slap me with a law suit and charge me $100,000 to use that phrase. Not that I even watch that show. Or DVR it.). Someday I too could have a sweet little 7 year old girl selling cookies and charming the snot out of people. I came back into my house, scooped up Lily, and hugged her. And she yelled, "Yeave me A-Yone! Stop, Mommy. Yeave A-Yone".

-sigh- I may have to start baking cookies with her or sign her up for a dance class if I want one of those sweet little girls.