I read other blogs.  I see the  photos.  I watch my friends’ families.  And I feel a small sense of loss.

I have a twinge of sadness that my husband has no son to walk alongside him.  No one to pass on his trade to, his skills, his business.  No one that *really* wants to wrestle or throw a baseball or watch the NBA (*gag*).  I feel a bit of loss that I have no son to influence, no boy that will eventually eat me out of house and home, or who will one day tower over me and yet still be my child.  No sweet, tender boy to direct in the ways of becoming a strong, godly man.

A boy is not what God has chosen for us.  He chose for us to have four beautiful girlie girls.  He knew that we would reach four and feel our family was full, quite possibly complete.  He knew that my husband would have to enter the world of estrogen and only have his work as an escape.  He knew I would not have to work through the energy and the physicality that is a boy and that I would occasionally feel an ache when I see other families with their sons.

Sometimes the ache is replaced with an irritation.  Sometimes I am simply annoyed, even angered, that others would think our family is somehow lacking because we don’t have sons.  This comes from so many places.  Friends, family, strangers at the grocery store.  You gonna keep tryin’ til you have a boy? Seriously, is our proliferation really your concern?  God knew what He put in my womb.  He didn’t make a mistake giving us four girls.  Each one is an incredible blessing.  Each one is perfect.  And I wouldn’t trade a single one of them to have a son.

Most of the time I am content.  I am satisfied with my girls.  I thoroughly enjoy them.  Like I keep saying, God knew.  He makes no mistakes.  One day, if He wills, I will have four sons through our daughters marriages.  And perhaps grandsons.  But I know that’s not entirely the same.

I know that we are not necessarily “done”.  But we feel no leading, no calling to add to our numbers.  Not naturally.  Not through adoption.  That can change, but it’s where our hearts have been for quite some time.

I do not begrudge the eight “x” chromosomes that God knit together in my womb.  But sometimes I still long for a “y”.

It’s funny how the small things add up into something so much greater.  This shouldn’t surprise me, as I teach my girls their addition facts, but on days like today you notice how it starts to accumulate.

It starts very early with crying, whining, complaining, and attitude.  And it starts with my beloved giving his Blackberry a coffee bath on the way home from the gym.  I give him my Blackberry and am left with no phone for the day, except his office phone, because both of our home phones are dead.  As in no-longer-able-to-be-charged dead.  He’s left with the use of a phone, but none of the data that he needs, like client phone numbers or addresses.  We’re reminded of the importance of backing up our phone data.  *sigh*

There are more struggles as we push through the school day and then I get a call from the ballet teacher that second child’s class has been canceled due to low enrollment and she needs to move to a Monday/Wednesday rotation for the school year.  That makes four nights a week at the ballet studio and four nights a week of anything for kids is a point I never wanted to get to, especially when they are still in grade school.  I try not to cry while I’m on the phone (Matt’s office phone) with the ballet instructor.

I contemplate calling Matt and figure it can wait until he gets home.  Then I get a call from him on the home phone, which is dead, but the answering machine works.  “Honey, I’ve been in a wreck.  I’m okay, but I need you to call my next appointment and tell them I won’t be there.  I think the guy that hit me is having a heart attack.” The girls and I take hands and pray.

I feel completely beaten by this day.  It’s not that anything huge happened.  Matt was not injured.  We did not get a call from a doctor saying one of us is terminally ill.  Our house is still standing.  Everything, in the grand scheme of things, is fine.  But it’s the little things of life that wear you down.  And this day has been one giant inconvenience of little things.

Except for two bright spot little things.  A sweet friend who sent me a text after all this happened and offered to come over and watch our kids so Matt and I could go out.  I cried.  I had to turn her down because Matt had meetings and Grace had ballet.  But sometimes, it truly is the thought that counts.

And just now, other friends stopped by with an apple pie.  Just because.

God is good.  He carries us on the days when the big things hit us and on days when the little ones threaten to overwhelm us.  He sees me.  He sees us.  He will get us through Matt having a broken phone and a broken truck, or maybe no truck at all.  He will get us through the decisions about ballet and schedules.  He will get us through bad attitudes and hard days.  He will carry us on the wings of His grace and the unexpected kindnesses of friends.