For extra entries (be sure to leave an additional comment for each extra entry):
The Fine Print: Contest ends at 11:59:59 PM Central Time on Friday, April 24, 2009. Winner will be chosen by random number generator. Must be 18 years or older to enter. Open to U.S. and its territories residents only. Winner will be notified via email on Saturday, April 25, 2009 and will have 48 hours to claim their prize or an alternate winner will be chosen.
It's a rainy Friday here and that puts me in the mood to cruise around the blogs checking out the giveaways. And since I'm always on the lookout for cutsy li'l girl things for my two month old daughter, I thought I'd share the best of the best I found with you today:
This week I decided to combine both Wordless Wednesday and Wordful Wednesday because this photo was just too special not to tell about!
We were on a family vacation when I first suspected I was pregnant.
I was a mother to three boys. I had accepted the fact that I was to be one of those daughter-less mothers who had to live vicariously through other's little girls and future daughter-in-laws. And I was okay with it.
Once my suspicions that I was pregnant were confirmed, I wasn't surprised to find myself assuming it was a boy with a secret hope that maybe, just maybe, this time it would be a girl.
What did surprise me, however, was when I had an ultrasound at 15 weeks and, when told that we were expecting a girl, I felt a sense of disappointment.
For almost 17 years I had been a mother to boys and had longed for a daughter. Yet, now that in just five and a half short months my prayers would be answered, I was dealing with a sense of disappointment; a sense of dread.
What was wrong with me??!!
For a couple of weeks, I just couldn't explain this emotion. Of course, expecting that I would be on the receiving end of odd looks and rolling eyes if I disclosed my feelings, I told no one. But as the weeks wore on, I came to realize just exactly what it was that I was feeling: a fear of the unknown.
After all, I had caring for boys down to a science. Clothing, diapering, potty training, the rough and tumble natures....I wasn't equipped to raise a little girl. While I had never been much of a girly girl myself, I had lost even more of my femininity living in testosterone dominated house.
As the months continued, I knew that I was having a girl but just never came to fully accept it. As a matter of fact, I half expected the day she was born that we would suddenly discover she had grown a penis.
I was wrong.
In January 2009, after a short four and a half hours of labor, my beautiful daughter entered this world with a loud but lady-like cry; complete with her precious little lips puckered into a pout and eyes that sucker the coldest of hearts to love her.
Just 24 hours later I was able to bring my baby girl home. A home that still brimmed with camouflage, toy trucks, hunting gear and a complete room dedicated to a college football team. And in one small space sat the evidence of things hoped for and expected: tiny pink onesies, hairbows, and frilly sleepers.
Later as I held my daughter, rocking her into a peaceful lullaby, I couldn't help but to cry. A cry that I came to realize was one as much of joy as it was of relief. I would know, after all, what it was to love and raise a daughter of my own: to know the fun of shopping for cute little dresses with those adorable bloomers; to know the joy of slumber parties; to feel the pain and shed the tears with the first breakup; to share in the excitement of wedding plans; and to be there when she needs her mother when she becomes a mother herself.
Without realizing it, all this time I had lived knowing that the old saying "A son is a son until he gets a wife, but daughter is a daughter for life" was true; that someday my boys would grow into men and become very independent from mom - which is what they are supposed to do and I will, although sadly, encourage them. Yet with a daughter I know, while she will grow and gain her own independence, there is always one person she will need....me, her mother.
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