Nicknames

Janet is our second youngest. She's tiny like Caroline, with a little slender face and BIG blue-green eyes. Our son was extremely proud of her and protective of her when she was a baby. In fact, protecting people like his sisters was one of his motives for joining the Marines. Anyhow, Janet's nickname is one she gave herself, though she hasn't let anyone use it since she became a teenager (although I sometimes say it out of habit.) I do not know why Janet chose this particular name for herself, unless it was because of the many ladybugs around our home when she was three or four. Seemingly out of nowhere, she looked at me with her little smile and big eyes, and asked, "Mommy, can I have some cookies cause this little ladybug loves cookies!" I laughed, and, needless to say, she got some cookies!" The name Ladybug stuck, so her nickname became "Ladybug."

A Tiny "Rosebud"

Caroline is our fifth child and fourth daughter. She was only 6 lb. 10 oz. at birth, and her complexion was pink andwhite and red. Everyone said , "Oh, she looks like a little rosebud!" Since her middle name is Rose, her nickname was "Rosie." Caroline was daddy's baby. The older girls used to get her to ask him whenever they wanted us to do something such as go out for dinner or ice cream, because they knew he'd have a harder time saying no to her. Sometimes they knew he would say no but they got Caroline to ask anyway just to see Daddy's reaction. When Caroline was three, we planned to buy her a tricycle. She looked at her Daddy with her baby blue eyes, and asked, "Daddy, will you buy me a cute little tricycle?" Guess what we did? We piled into the car, drove to Child World, and bought Caroline a new tricycle that night! She's still tiny, but is now a beautiful, smiling young lady!

The Adventures of Raising One Boy Among Six Girls

Our son David is a great blessing to us. Before we had him, I had a miscarriage. We prayed that God would give us another baby, and that He would give us a boy. He answered both those prayers. Becca told me the story of what Al did when he arrived home after David was born. According to Becca, he took the stairs two at a time, yelling at the top of his lungs, "It's a boy!! It's not a girl, it's not a doll, it's a real live boy!" As he ran up our stairs, he jumped up and hit the top of our kitchen doorway. David is our middle child, literally surrounded by his older and younger sisters. Boys and girls are different. Not better or worse, not harder or easier, just different. One of the most interesting things about David was that he took everything literally. When he was three, we were on our way back from driving our older kids to school. He pointed out the donut shop in the center of town. I said, "Yes, David, some day I'll take you there." Well, two days later we drove by the donut shop again. We had a conversation something like this: "Mom. There's the donut shop. You said you'd take me there someday."
"OK, David, we'll go to the donut shop." I'm glad I had my grocery money with me that day!
David enjoyed music and learned songs after fearing them once or twice. He liked the song "He's Still Working on Me," which tells how God made the universe in a week, but He's still working on me, so He must be very patient. Whenever we would begin to reprove David, via the raised index finger and the stern "Now, David....." he would begin singing that song, complete with big blue eyes and little choirboy voice! We would crack up laughing..... but after the first couple of times he did that we still had to correct him. We would say, "David, He's still working on you but you're still going to get disciplined."
I did wonder, when we found out that our youngest was going to be a girl, what David was going to do with six sisters. Then I realized that if God was sending us this little baby girl, He had also chosen David to be the brother of all these girls. Well, David learned to love babies and he is a Marine Reservist!

More "Little Kid " Stories

Melissa, or Missy, as we nicknamed her, is our third daughter. (We have six altogether, with our son in the middle.) She was a very peaceful, laid-back baby. When she was about two she started calling me "my own Mommy". She also used to ask me to "talk to me in my cheek", which, in plain English, means "Whisper in my ear." I used to put my cheek against hers and whisper, "cuddle-cuddle," and she would do it back. So when she wanted me to do that, she would say "Talk to me in my cheek." She was, and is, very intelligent. In first grade she got a perfect 100 average on her spelling tests. She complained about a worksheet that had been marked wrong one day. The class was studying compound words, and the directions had said "Circle the smaller words in each compound word." When she showed me the paper, I saw that she had only circled half of the words. When I pointed this out to her, her reply was, "But it said to circle the smaller words!" She had circled the smaller of each pair of words in each compound word! This is the same girl who when she was older locked my keys in my car because she figured out how to circumvent the device that was supposed to keep you from locking your keys in the car! Sometimes we can be too complicated!

When They Were Little

Gail is my second daughter. She has long red hair, loves softball, cooking, amd babies, and has a great sense of humor. She was born in October, when the fall leaves were at their peak of color. We originally thought she would be early, but she was two weeks late. She was tiny, 7lb. 3oz., with huge blue eyes in her little face. When she was about two and a half, she would come up to me and say,"Mom, I want you!" I would reply, "Yes, here I am. What do you want?" Again she would say, "Mom I want you!" After a few of these exchanges, I would say, "Gail. I'm right here. What do you want?" She would say, "You! Just you!" Then I would ask, "But what do you want me for?" Her answer: "A hug!" Needless to say, she would get hugs and give them back! My sister-in-law saw one of these exchanges and said, "Awww, what a nice thing to want!" It was, and still is. Janet did the same thing when she was the same age! I love telling these stories and remembering them!