My daughter is one of my biggest fans. I am pretty proud about that. She always encourages me to do new things and takes an interest in what I am doing. Her responses and feedback are always helpful and are mostly positive. My fashion choices will at times require her give me a look that makes me plod right back into my room to try again. Right now we are struggling with me being too “matchy.” I have worn matching clothes for fifty years and it has always been considered good. I cannot accept the idea that now my shoes should not match my outfit. It feels all wrong. But other than that, she is pretty accepting of my work. She is a faithful reader of this blog and recently gave me some constructive feedback. She thinks I need to write more about her. That is probably good advice. My children are my world, so I obviously think they have done some pretty cute and delightful things over the years. I probably should share them! This week I will tell a few stories from when they were very young.
I’ll start with my son, only because he is older. He was three when his sister was born. We were worried about how he would react to having a little sister, but when he came to visit me and the baby in the hospital, he was all smiles and wanted to hold her and kiss her. We had his grandma drop him off at the hospital with us the day we went home so that he could ride home with us. Our first car trip as a family of four! I will never forget his sweet little face as we strapped her carseat into the backseat next to him. His face was all lit up like it was Christmas! And then he said, “Wow! Does the baby get to have a sleepover with us?” That pretty much summed it up right there. He was fine with babies. He just didn’t know why we needed one in our house. A few weeks later, I decided to take both kids on an outing by myself. Of course, the baby starting wailing as soon as we got on the road. My son just looked at her in disgust and said, “I told you having a baby was a bad idea.” Keep in mind that he was three. I needed him to do something to calm her down, so I suggested he sing a song to her. So he started to sing the ABC song for her and it worked! She calmed down and eventually fell asleep. That’s when I asked him when he had learned that song. His dad and I had been singing the ABCs to him his entire life. Every single day. Multiple times. He had never, ever attemtped to sing any part of the song before. He always said he didn’t know it. I was beginning to think he needed tutoring in the ABC song! And here he had just blasted out the entire song without one mistake. He told me that he had always known it, he had just never had a need to sing it before. Classic.
When my daughter was about four, we got two little kittens. One for her, and one for her brother. They were rescue kittens, and when they were old enough we had to get them spayed and neutered. Her kitten was the female, so when she came home she had a few little stitches in her belly. My daughter was enraged when she saw this. I could not understand why she was so angry at me. She kept asking me how many babies they took out. It took quite a while, but I finally got her to explain what her understanding was about mommy bellies. She believed that God placed a certain amount of babies in every girl’s belly. Then, when the girl grew up and got married, the babies started to come out. She thought the vet had gone into Lilly’s belly and taken out her babies. No wonder she was so upset with me! Her thinking was so precious. I explained it in child-appropriate terms and she seemed better. But not before she told me that she thought God had put fourteen babies in her belly. I told her not to plan on me for a babysitter.
The next story is a classic for my daughter. When she was in second or third grade she attended parent-teacher conferences with her father and me. She sat in the hallway during the conference, but she grabbed her report card as soon as we left the classroom. She looked over her grades quickly. Then she got to the part where areas were scored with an “S” or a “U.” I guess she had never noticed this before. She said, “And look- on this part, I got all Splendids!” I laughed so hard I almost fell down. I told her that S meant satisfactory. She was pretty sure her teacher didn’t think she was just satisfactory. She thought she was splendid. I think she’s pretty splendid, too.
I promise to share more stories about my children. I have a ton of them. They are my pride and joy. My why.
On another, totally unrelated, note, I can only assume that many of you are at the edge of your seat wondering about my car status. I have exciting news! I have a new car! Finally. It was a long process. There was much heartache. My hopes and dreams were squashed over and over. But then one day I looked online and there she was, looking at me like the magical being that she is. The stars all were in alignment and we drove to look at her. It was completely dark outside, but I’m pretty sure there was a rainbow and she was at the end of it. We are very happy together. Now I just have to keep her ten more years…
