My Sweet Middle Child....part one

It's so hard to be a middle child....

I never knew this growing up because I was the very last (SURPRISE!!!) child with two much older sisters(15 years and 19 years older). I was the baby that I'm sure got all the ooooohs and ahhhhhhhs that my children have each gotten when they were the baby.

Of course, I remember all of the details about when I had each of my three children, and I also remember being spellbound from the moment of their births. Each of my three was the most absolutely beautiful baby anyone had ever seen, so beautiful, so intelligent, so, so.....so perfect! Later, when I'd have her (or him) in the shopping cart at Wal-Mart, strangers would come up and tell me what I'd already known about my precious infant. She (or he) was perfect! No, I mean, they REALLY WERE perfect!!!!

I remember feeling bad for my oldest when my second was born because she was already 5 1/2....a school-aged child by the time I had my second, and she had already lost all of her baby fat, etc. Well-meaning strangers would comment on the perfection of my second daughter without speaking a word to or about my oldest. I remember feeling that "ouch" for her yet being reluctant to say anything much about it to her for fear of making something bigger out of it than it was in her mind.

Yet, my oldest still had one thing. She was the oldest. The first-born. The only for 5 1/2 years.



And the baby was...the baby. My giggly, curly haired, huggy, sweet and sensitive baby. When she was 4 months old, I developed a quick and nasty case of mastitis, and for the hours before my mom could drive over from out of state, the baby was content to lay in bed with me, snuggling and cooing. For 3 1/2 years, she was beside me almost constantly.





Even when I was sick and throwing up while pregnant she'd come and pat my back and ask if I was okay. She never complained about how tired and lethargic I was during my pregnancy. We were two peas in a pod, that girl and I.


And then, as people discovered that I was pregnant again , they began to ask (often in front of my two girls), if we were going to find out the sex of the baby....maybe we'd get lucky and have that elusive boy this time. Like my first two children were just efforts to "make" a boy. Okay, I was feelin' that ouch for both of my girls....

My oldest was going to be 9 years old when this baby was born. She was excited. The baby was going to be 3 1/2. I was a little worried about how she would take it. A lot worried. But I thought that it would all even out.

More to come....