I’ll never forget the day of my 20 week ultrasound when I was pregnant with my daughter. My mother held my hand as the doctor pointed out three tiny white dots on the screen and said, “It’s a girl!” If I hadn’t already been lying down, I would’ve fainted. Instead, I cried. These were NOT tears of joy. I wanted a boy.

The doctor excused herself to give me a moment to recollect my sanity and my mother’s wide eyes turned on me in confusion. “What’s wrong with you?”

I was still sobbing. “I can’t do pigtails! I can’t do tea parties! I want a boy who will play in dirt and try to set the woods on fire!”

What I was trying to convey – very incoherently – was that the thought of being a mother to a little girl struck fear in me that rivaled the caliber of fear I felt watching airplanes circle above my building on the morning of 9-11.  I was genuinely terrified.  A tomboy to the core, I was very ill-prepared in the ways of princess parties, EZ Bake Ovens and ballet recitals. Being a single mom was going to be difficult enough. Surely God could cut me a little slack and grant my small request of letting the baby be a boy. And yet, the three little dots on the screen sealed my fate.

Fast forward six years. One day this past summer, my little princess brought me a handful of worms out of the backyard. She was decked out in her Sleeping Beauty dress (which she promptly changes into whenever we walk in the door). Rather than holding a magic wand, she had a magic shovel. Instead of glass slippers she stomped around in bright green rain boots. Through the dirt and mud on her face, she was smiling.

You can’t tell me that God doesn’t have a sense of humor.

Life doesn’t always turn out how we think it should… on occasion it turns out even better.