It's a Boy!

My daughter is 17 years old and each and every time I am with her I am reminded of what a blessing she is and has been to my life. I can remember when my wife was pregnant and we spent several sessions compiling a list of preferred names if our child was a boy or if our child was a girl. I believe that we ended up with three finalists in each column. However, for whatever reason, I always just carried with me a sense that our child would be a girl. Indeed I kept an open mind to some extent, but in my heart, I had settled all indecision and removed all questions. Since her arrival in the world, I have given everything that I could to her. Together along the way we read thousands of stories, dreamed countless dreams, created scores of our own games, and laughed and giggled enough to make our own soundtrack to life. As much as I helped to shape who she has become since her birth, I think she has helped to shape me just as much. I am worthy of whatever balance the scales indicate because of her presence and influence. Over the years she has helped to chip away and diminish my hard edges and to enhance what makes me beautiful.

The other day I was chatting with a colleague of mine at work who was relating to me his escapades with his two sons from the previous weekend. This is not the first time he has shared with me stories of his wild weekends with his boys. Whether it is off-roading on their dirt bikes, setting new times down at the track with his home-built race car, or out on some other hair-raising adventure, he is clearly savoring every minute of their childhood and is having the time of his life. However, after our most recent conversation, he asked me if I had ever wished that I had a son to do "guy" things with instead of a daughter. That was actually the first time that I had ever taken a moment to consider this question. This lead me to start to consider how I would be different today if I had raised a boy instead of a girl, how that male relationship would have impacted me, what different roads I would have gone down ... I did not think on this topic all that long, as given the option of going back and finding out, I would definitely pass. Looking along the 17 year journey that I have been on with my daughter, with all of its twists and turns, hills and valleys, I would not change much, if anything.