The Princess

The Professor and I have one daughter whom we call the Princess. Not because she is all that is stereotyped as being princess-like. She can run with the boys and sometimes even out work the boys. She thinks jokes about bodily functions are funny. She gets dirtier in an afternoon of play than all the boys put together. She wrestles. She is one tough cookie.

But we call her that because she is so precious to us. We call her th

e Princess because we don't ever want her to forget the place only she has in our home. That God made her a girl in the middle of all these boys does not diminish how important she is. It magnifies it.

She is sometimes given over to the drama and will lay her head down on the dinner table and lament about why we have all these boys and why we don't have any sisters for her. Reminding her that God knows exactly the family of which she is to be a part seldom consoles her. These episodes are lessening with each passing year.

Maybe someday she will earn another name by who she is or what she becomes. (Don't we all earn those kinds of names some time or another. Good or bad.) But to us she is the Princess only because of what she means to us. It is not about what she does or doesn't do.