Not Just Another Girl...

The boys in my household have a general feeling about girls, almost all girls, give or take a couple of cousins, grandmas, aunts....

I wish I could say that their feelings are positive ones, but they're not.  If the word "girls" comes out of their mouth it is usually accompanied by a fantastic eye roll and words like gross, stupid, annoying etc. They don't like girls.  At all.  And, they have even decided that if I give birth to a female, their world, as they know it, will come to an end. (They got that one right!)

But there is one girl who has managed to make her way into their hearts.  To them, she's not a girl.  She's Elena.  And, they love her. Love, love, love her.  She used to babysit for us when we lived in Olathe.  Then, to our dismay, she had to grow up and go off to college.  We were mad at her. Very mad.

A year has passed since they last saw her (she studied abroad in France, then we moved, then she went back to KSU...we just couldn't seem to connect).  But, last weekend, she came to the boys' wrestling tournament.  And, it was as if not a day, not a moment had passed since they had seen her last - time just picked up where it left off.

She patiently listened as they shouted out over the crowd of cheering fans everything that had happened in their lives in the past 365 days....from star wars and farming to school and sports.  And, for 5 minutes I was on "listening with enthusiasm and excitement" vacation while she took over.  I love her too!!

There are just certain people who come into your life, and make you wonder how you ever got along without them.  You never want them to leave.  You hope that they will always be there, and want to be there.  That's how we feel about Elena.