Strength of a girl "addendum"

In the strength of a girl blog within the comment section I saw a post from my daughter that for better lack of a term is a bit of payback. She wrote the simple sentence "But I am a girl!"
Back when my daughter was young she had made the determination that she wanted to play youth baseball. We had signed her up the year before we moved and I got the call for her to be on the team and asked if I would coach as well. I figured at the time that this would be great time to share something I loved with my daughter.

During the course of that spring Jess and I would go out on our front lawn and play catch or swing a bat in an attempt to help her get better. I’d throw her the ball and as she would go to return it she would cock her arm in that funny little way girls do and attempt to throw.

One of the ways I loved my daughter was in teasing her. This was one of the ways I grew up and I always wanted her to have fond memories of it when she got older. As she threw the ball back that season I would always remark to her "Geez, you throw like a girl!" She would always get a little upset and yell back at me "I DO NOT!!" This went on for the better part of a summer.

One day as we were playing catch she threw the ball and being the smart-ass I am again exclaimed the old "You throw like a girl" only this time things would be different. Jess stopped with this bewildered look on her face and simply replied to me "But dad, I AM a girl"
It only took her a year to realize it, I guess that’s much better than my 38 years I needed to realize it in me.

I look back on that story as one of the most fondest memories I have of my little girl ..

~K~