IT'S A GIRL!!

Today we had another sonogram and found out what our little baby is - it's a girl!

Now, I'm not going to lie and say I wasn't kind kind of hoping just a little bit that we were having a little boy. Besides the whole father-son things (you know: camping, sports, rough-housing, shooting guns, getting dirty doing yardwork and then tromping it through Kristin's clean house), I have to admit - part of it was that the idea of a pretty little girl scares me to death.

Now, don't get me wrong - I'm really excited! I see pictures of Kevin having a picnic with his little girl, or I read about Josh getting guided tours from his, or watch Chris with his little princess. Tonight we had dinner with a pastor from our church, and watched his little girl put on a Disney princess dress and twirl for us. And I'm totally looking forward to my little girl standing on my feet while we dance.

But I'm scared.

I'm scared because she's already got me wrapped around her tiny little finger.

We spent less than an hour in a dark room watching the 3-D sonogram on a big TV (see her little hands in the sonogram pic!). There were two couches and I was all over both of them and about every inch of the floor in between them. I was so excited to see my little girl - but the TV screen was as close as I could get, and I just couldn't sit still watching her.

I'm scared because she's going to grow up and she's going to be beautiful. I know this because her Mama is beautiful. How do you tell your darling little girl no? I have a hard time sticking to the rules when my dog looks cute, and Kristin has a whole bag of cute faces she can pull out to make me do strange things like stop by a movie theater to pick her up some popcorn (it's apparently much better than normal stuff, and yes, this was before she was pregnant). I'm going to be a total pushover for my pretty little girl, I think.

And having a pretty little girl brings all sorts of other problems, too. There's a song out right now that I find particularly amusing called, "Cleaning This Gun." The chorus goes like this:

Come on in boy, sit on down
And tell me 'bout yourself
So you like my daughter, do you now
Yeah we think she's something else
She's her daddy's girl and her mama's world
She deserves respect, that's what she'll get, ain't it son
Now y'all run along and have some fun
I'll see you when you get back
Bet I'll be up all night
Still cleaning this gun

I'm scared because I know she'll keep me up more nights than I want to think about (I have a bad feeling my prayer life is about to reach a whole new level). I'm scared because one day some guy's going to come along and take her away. I remember when I asked Kristin's Dad if I could marry his daughter - and I remember that I was scared to death to do that because I had at least a vague idea of what I was asking him to let me have.

My little princess is only officially 20 weeks old - and I already love her more than I can explain. After all, I only know her from a picture on a TV screen and a tiny little thump on Kristin's belly when my little girl kicks (which she does a lot lately). And it's amazing how much more real just knowing which pronoun to use makes all this.

I'm quite certain I have no idea of the emotional rollercoaster my little girl is about to take me on. I have a feeling I'll look back and see life to this point being a little bit one-dimensional. I think a whole bunch of color is about to flood my little black-and-white world.