The Middle Child and Only Daughter

Hannah turns 7 next week. I took her to a movie tonight and allowed myself to float along with the movie in my pink bubble fantasy world about her. Don't all mothers have some kind of fantasy about their children? Hoping they grow up and become successful, happy beings, maybe they resemble a more youthful form of ourselves. As Hannah gets older, she's gets more beautiful. I feel a like I'm getting a little too protective of her: don't wear that shirt, those shorts are too short, comb your hair, when you're wearing a dress sit with your legs down and together.

I envision Hannah as an adult in her own little house, sitting at her table with her, reminiscing about her childhood, sympathizing with her over life's woes, laughing over hot chocolate at the antics of her children, and still, mesmerized by her beauty and her spirit.



We spent the weekend in Utah with one of my best friend's in life. She's a girly girl, and so Hannah was smitten. Kim had long hair she straightened, wore make up, wore earrings, oozed a confidence and ease that Hannah's mother seems not so good at. Hannah got to wear REAL make up, and had Kim do my makeup so she could see how it was applied. Oh yes, I could see the wheels turning and Hannah memorizing everything Kim was doing. I have a feeling that my own make over is not too far in the future, done by my own talented and creative daughter. Hannah got her hair curled. She got her first dance with a boy (Kim's 14 year old son, Seth) who was so kind and considerate to Hannah and played with her when the other boys were doing boy things. I won't say Hannah has a first love, but you could see the adoration in her eyes for Seth.

Anyone that tells you the only difference between boys and girls is the ability to do hair is either lying or never had a girl. Even from a young age, Hannah has been stubborn, competitive, emotional and loud. She makes herself known. Her voice is louder than the boys, her fury more scornful. Hannah seems to be a bit resistant to change, and sometimes we find that frustrating, and sometimes endearing. Frustrating in that she doesn't want to ever move, try something new or accept any change to schedule. Endearing that she is so emotionally attached to her brothers, she doesn't want any "leaving the nest". I've mentioned before the difference in the younger boys having an older sister than my older boys who did not have that influence. The younger boys are more compassionate, more loving and more "loved". When mommy has hurt their feelings, they turn to Hannah for comfort. Hannah has been the Little Mama.



One of Hannah's most asked question is why was she not the first child. It's not a question any of us can answer, but I do see how being the middle child, 3rd in line out of 6, and the only girl, could make life hard sometimes. With no girls, no pretty things are sacred, feels like everything gets stomped on as soon as she makes it perfect, you know, because boys just aren't that into tea parties, or understand why Barbie needs her hair washed and outfit changed 14 times a day, or why it is so fun to put on make up and a pretty dress, life is just so....frustrating!

When I turned 7, it was just before the Christmas pageant at school. My mom let me wear some lipstick, curled my bangs, and I wore a dress my grandmother had made me. For my birthday I got some blue zirconium earring studs. My birthday party was a tea party followed by a slumber party. I felt so girly, so pretty! Its funny how life seems to repeat itself sometimes, as that is what Hannah is hoping for, minus the slumber party (her best friend moved away this spring). Kim did all these things for Hannah over the weekend, and taking a cue from her, I hope to follow up with a bit of makeup and nail polish for her for her birthday.



I used to be so terrified of having a daughter. I think it has made me more feminine and more understanding of girls. Sons always hold a special place in a mother's heart, like they are your first love times how many you have. But girls...girls hold a few more places, like that of best friend, sister, mother, daughter, mentor. Sometimes I think when we all decided to come to earth, Hannah was the one to say "Ok, you be the mom and I'll be the daughter." Only, I think it should have been the other way around. I think I have a lot to learn from my daughter, which is why I feel incompetent as her mother sometimes. At loss for words, at loss for advice, at loss for discipline and at loss for understanding. I'll say the boys are so much easier because they are pretty literal. Hannah is emotional, has the memory of an elephant, and can be one of the most stubborn people I know (I have no idea where she gets that from. *whistling nonchalantly*

Homewrecker

What is my idea of a "Homewrecker"?

Even though, the first thing that drops pops into my head is my favorite burrito at Moe's called a Homewrecker, it's really not my true idea of one.



The urban dictionary's definition of a homewrecker is, "A person who takes a taken individual with the intention of breaking up the relationship and creating a relationship of their own. Meaning not a homewrecker unless the person in the relationship leaves for the other person." The grammatical errors were not edited but I did edit the spelling errors from the "dictionary". By the way, I wouldn't recommend looking that word up in the urban dictionary as it contains offensive material. (YIKES)

Leaving aside the Urban dictionary's definition of a homewrecker and the catchy lyrics of the country song, my idea of a homewrecker is a combination of the following:

Crumbs
Water
Paper Clippings
Sticky Substances, usually from food
Poopy diapers, especially leaky ones

Yes, generally the items in that list are messes created from kids.  The kids I love and will gladly keep, the messes, well, they are homewreckers. 

Nesting is a Chick Thing

Eight pregnancies, one miscarriage and seven lively, happy children make for an interesting life and many stories. During my each of my pregnancies I have been known to crave strange things, but during my madwoman nesting phases the stories are even more bizarre.

During the pregnancy with my first daughter, I had the feeling that nothing was clean enough. I worked full time and went to school part time, but during my spare time I was found sitting in closets scrubbing the walls and the baseboards. The bathrooms were another area that I targeted daily. Our bathrooms were tiled two-thirds of the way up the wall and three-fourths the way up the wall in the shower. Using a special toothbrush, I scrubbed all the grout with cleanser and bleach water. In addition, the entire house received a thorough cleaning and mopping each day. No one liked to visit me because I put them to work with me.

There was little time for obsessive scrubbing with my second pregnancy as my husband was away in Boot Camp and I had a toddler to care for full-time. I also bought our first home and moved us in my eighth month of pregnancy. The house had more than the average amount of trees on the property for its size. Ten trees on our property lined the busy road we lived on and the house was on a corner lot. The overgrown trees had branches hanging into the road, taking up two-thirds of the second lane. The house was previously owned by a bachelor who had a dog and I don’t think he ever deep cleaned the house the entire time he lived there. Too tired to clean house, I had the real estate company hire someone to clean it before we moved in.

Cleaning was out of the way and all I could concentrate on late at night was chopping the branches off the ten massive trees. Just imagining it wasn’t enough and I was not about to wait for my husband to come home in three months to do it. I called my doula up two nights in a row telling her my obsession with the trees. The Texas heat that summer was almost unbearable as it stayed a sweltering 115 degrees on a daily basis. Nothing was going to stop me, though- nothing. I bought a large manual branch trimmer and spent hours cutting branches, reaching up with my short five foot, one inch body. I got half way finished with the line of trees and looked around me at the piles of large branches needing to be hauled into a pile and out of the street. I couldn’t do it because at that point, I couldn’t move another muscle. My dad and my sisters came to my rescue and pleaded with me to stop trimming trees as I was almost nine months pregnant. No way, Hosea! I wasn’t finished yet.

That night, I called my doula again and shared with her my woes of the unfinished project and how it was just eating at me. The next afternoon I was at it again until I finished. My dad and sisters came over again and helped me even though they thought I was completely insane. I refused all offers for my dad to do it for me. It is what I wanted to do and I wasn’t about to share my project. I used to wonder why my daughter kept flipping in my stomach just days before she was born. Tree trimming, maybe? Thankfully she ended up in the right position for me to give birth naturally.

The trees were done and the housecleaning was covered thanks to help from my friends and family during the last month and a half of my third pregnancy. I spent a month on bed-rest due to early dilation and threats of my young man wanting to come into the world too soon. He didn’t come early. In fact, he came a week late and was born in the car, but that is another story.

It was the holiday season and I was in the mood for cookies. I received the green light to be on my feet so I started baking one sunny afternoon. I kept baking cookies and baking cookies and baking cookies. I filled the entire kitchen with cookies of every kind. No counter, tabletop or empty surface was left uncovered. My family dropped in to visit around the same time my husband came home from work. They couldn’t believe their eyes. “Why, this many cookies?” they kept asking. I couldn’t say; I just wanted a lot of cookies. My husband called some friends over and even they were dumbfounded with how many cookies I made for no “reason”. I had a reason. I was nesting! A few weeks later I gave birth to our third child and only son. We didn’t have any cookies left to enjoy at the birth. Sigh. I just bought a “birthday cake” instead. Another thing my husband just didn’t understand.

Women tend to get the nesting urge to prepare their home for the arrival of the new baby. It gives them extra energy and some women are very productive during this time. I too, am very productive while pregnant and nesting. I’m also good at cracking the whip for the family to help me. All this productivity does tend to inspire me to do some unusual things and my loved ones still laugh at me during some of the more bizarre nesting moments. What can a girl say? Nesting, it’s a chick thing. You wouldn’t understand!

Loobalee Giveway

Our winner of the Loobalee Giveaway is Fawn Ashby! Congratulations!! Thanks so much for everyone's participation!

Nesting Stories

Today I was cleaning the house with my kids and after getting a little bit OCD this week (scrubbing my stove with a toothbrush), I was reminded of going through something like that when I was nesting. That usually set in for the last three months of pregnancy, but there have been times I really wish I could get that urge to clean something to the point of sterilazation. I think what makes nesting so humorous is that you feel these things are imperative prior to the baby entering your house. She will definately notice that you alphabetized all your books or that you deep cleaned and organized the food storage. *eyes rolling*

Just before Isaac was born I had very little energy (lots of false labor) but I found time in the week before he was born to organize our built in book shelf filled with romance novels by color.

Just before Jesse was born, I could not go to bed one night until one of the dogs had a bath. I insisted she be given a bath and Curtis refused (he being the one with a normal brain at the moment). In a huge huff, I lugged the dog into the bathroom, threw her in the tub and scrubbed and scrubbed until she'd lost half a bushel of hair. I'm pretty sure the intense workout started some kind of contractions, but sadly didn't put me into labor. I had a clean dog ready for the baby to come home though. I'm sure by the time Jesse was born, she was just as dirty as she had been when I insisted she have a bath.

We moved in my eight month with Hannah and there was no end in sight of getting that house prepared for her. It was infested with fleas, the cat was sick from them, the house was leaky (roof caved in from a rotted roof and the a/c was going bad), and it was just not a comfortable house. The month before we moved though, I packed most of our house and scrubbed it clean. That must have satified those urges for me after we moved. Somehow the nesting transferred to Curtis because he was the one staying up late painting dressers and getting her bedroom ready the night I went into labor.

I worked almost the entire pregnancy with Simeon. Curtis took a contract overseas in the last month and so I came home that last month of the pregnancy to nest, finish moving into the house we'd moved into a year before, and reconnect with the kids before the baby came. I organized the garage, cleaned every room (this included washing curtains and painting some rooms) and scrubbed. I didn't realize I was truly nesting until my mom and sister came over and I showed off my spotless refrigerator and cabinets with all the food in alphabetical order. Because we all know that those new babies are going to be looking in our cupboards.

We moved again in the seventh month of pregnancy with Joshua. Actually, we moved in the 1st, 3rd, 7th months and then 6 weeks after he was born. There wasn't room to nest because I was cleaning and reorganizing 4 different houses during that time. Enough said.

I wonder if at some point you have that 6th baby and have kind of given up on hope that your house would ever be spottlessly clean? I was put on a short term bedrest and some ladies from church came and cleaned my house for me. There was not a crumb left when they were done! The morning I was in labor I decided we needed to move the food storage from Hannah's room to the downstairs. While I didn't do a lot of the lifting, I got to supervise. Thank goodness for a husband and mother in law that indulges a crazy pregnant woman! I did insist on cleaning the garage at one point. And Isaac reminded me about the living room fiasco. I spent the day moving all the furniture, only to put it right back where it was at the end of the day.

Anyone care to share their nesting stories?