About a million and a half years ago, when I was newly pregnant with Asher, I had visions of a baby girl.

Now let's be clear - there is a Southern Baby Girl look that is practically a religion in the Deep South. Smocked dresses runneth over. Anything that stands still long enough will be monogrammed (no kidding - when I made my only trip into a baby boutique to buy a diaper cover for Emmy's baptism dress, the cashier asked me if I wanted to pay the surcharge to have it monogrammed there, or if I'd rather monogram it myself. Why oh WHY would I spend ten EXTRA dollars on a single pair of baby underwear to put her initials on her dainty little booty?). Bows are glued to fuzzy little heads. The whole thing gets ridiculous.

It surprises exactly none of you that I'm just not the Southern Baby Girl kind of mom.

But forever ago, when I was pregnant with Asher, I imagined a baby girl. A ladybug sort of baby girl, not a Southern Baby Girl. No bows, no glue, just little gingham sundresses and dark curls, a kitchen set parked in the corner by the stove. Yellows and reds and sunlight and playing on a blanket in the green green grass. This is the kind of baby girl I would have.

Then I found out Asher was Asher, and I focused on new daydreams. My thoughts of a baby girl dissipated completely, and even when I was pregnant with Emmy I wondered more about how a little sister would grow and fit among her brothers. I had forgotten all about little gingham dresses and sunlight, and the boys had long outgrown their own toy stove in the kitchen.

Until this weekend, when I opened a bag of clothes Laura graciously passed down to Emmy. I was sorting through what would fit now, and what will fit later, when I saw it.

The gingham dress.



Red. With a watermelon on the front.



And I remembered, I have a girl. Five years later, I have my baby girl after all.

And it turns out, she fits in with her brothers just fine.