I’m raising a princess. Not by choice but my toddler has made it very clear that a princess is exactly what she is. This became abundantly clear when we bought her Halloween costume this year. My husband and I each picked out a costume for her. My husband’s was a big, puffy spider complete with eight legs and a web. It was, without a doubt, adorable. Ah, but I knew better. I now know what my daughter likes. I picked out a cute bumble bee costume with a big poufy skirt and a pretty headband. Guess which one she chose to keep and which one she refused to even try on?
Right when she saw the bumble bee costume, she declared it to be a princess bumble bee. Like there’s even any other kind. She put it on and wouldn’t take it off. When my dear but clueless husband tried to cajole her into his chosen costume, her response was, “Ewww, NO! Spiders are yucky. I’m a princess bumble bee.” I think that pretty much says it all.
I’m not sure how this really came about. It’s not like I go around every day telling my daughter she’s a princess. I really don’t. In fact, I don’t think she’s yet watched one cartoon with a princess involved. She has a few books with princess characters but she probably watches Mike the Knight more than she’s exposed to those books. So I just don’t get it.
While we’re on the topic, my daughter also loves make up and lipstick (chap stick, in her case). She is just a ‘girly’ girl. I acknowledge that I may have exposed her to the makeup and lipstick. I mean, I love wearing it myself and she loves to emulate me. But what I find interesting is that she shows no interest in emulating her father when he does his ‘beauty routine.’ She never pretends to shave or put on cologne or deodorant anything else he might do. It's just me she wants to copy. If it was a case of nurture over nature, shouldn’t she be copying both of us? We both want her to spend time doing what we both individually enjoy but the truth of the matter is that she just seems to enjoy ‘girly’ things more.
Girly things like dolls and purses and shoes. To be specific, shoes with heels and even more specifically, mommy’s shoes with heels. When my daughter turned two, my brother wanted to buy her a Mini Cooper. In my bid to not confine my daughter into a box not chosen by her, I told him that he could buy her the yellow version but not the pink version. Yellow is unisex and cheerful and doesn’t tell her that as a girl, she must like all things pink and frilly. So she received the yellow car and she loved it. But you better believe that when my niece got a pink car, my daughter decided that a pink car is much superior to a yellow car. And no matter how hard I try to introduce her to all the colours of the rainbow, she’s smitten with pink. Sometimes purple, but mostly just pink.
So there it is. I’ve tried to fight it but I’m throwing in the towel. If my daughter wants to wear Easter dresses every day of the week, so be it. If she wants to mother her dolls and maybe do their hair, so be it. Sometimes in the desire to not put our children into a box, we do just that. I may have been trying to fight her being stereotyped into all things girly but that's just who she is. A girly princess, to be exact.
I’m just going to put it out there. I cannot wait for this year to be over. I’m so done with 2012 and to be honest, I was done about 8 months ago. This year has totally kicked my ass and I need to get it behind me.
One of the worst things you can hear when you’re at the doctor’s office is the non-specific, “There seem to be some complications.” Needless to say, this year has been one complication after another for me. It started in January when I had complications with a previous surgery. Then in February, I had a miscarriage with complications that nearly killed me. Afterwards were two months of a difficult recovery that also had me see both a pulmonary embolism and a breast cancer scare. I was terrified the entire time it took to get the results in.
With all that behind me, I found out I was pregnant at the end of May. While it was unplanned, I was excited to finally put all my health worries behind me to concentrate on the new pregnancy. However, what I have realized is that no matter how bad your own personal health scares are, nothing compares to the health scares of your children. And that’s where I’m at right now.
Almost immediately after finding out I was pregnant, I found out that I had complications. Ah, that word again. See how it just creeps up on you? I was referred to a hematologist who let me know I have clinically significant and dangerous antibodies in my blood that can be fatal for my unborn child. The kicker is that this also means it will get progressively more dangerous each time I am pregnant. I’ve never before cried in a doctor’s office but that day I did.
There isn’t much anyone can do when you have antibodies in your blood. Basically, it results in a lot of tests and monitoring. And waiting and waiting and waiting. My biggest relief came when I passed the 26 week mark. My ob/gyn had advised me that we wouldn’t know if the pregnancy would be viable until after 26 weeks. Well, I’m past that mark now and you can bet I’m breathing just a little bit easier.
It’s not over though. I still worry every day for things to be okay and pray that the tests being done will say everything is fine. What keeps me going at times is the baby’s kicks. I can feel this baby kicking me every day and to me, that’s a sign that it is fighting to come out into this world. That it’s not giving up on me and my defective body. This baby is doing what comes naturally to all babies—letting mommy know that it’s here and that it’s a force to be reckoned with so watch out. That one little kick is enough to reassure me even when I’m feeling my most defeated. And if this baby’s not giving up, neither am I.
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