From the Innocence of Youth........."Mom did your belly get fat..when?"
Seems all the kids in my neighborhood had a Mom who was going to have a baby. Actually, now that I think about it, it was probably only two, but at the time, all I wanted.......a baby in the house! Somehow, I knew they came from Mom's belly, didn't have a clue of how the baby got there. Being an extremely naive seven year old in 1959, not knowing such things was normal, or at least I'd like to think so. Asking best friend Teresa, only added to frustrations, she didn't have a clue either.....or she'd been sworn to secrecy. Regardless, I did not know, but this very stubborn and overly determined seven year old, was now on a mission.
Perhaps timing is everything, waiting for the exact moment to ask, weighing all options, asking at the dinner table.........a serious blunder. A learning experience, perhaps, in retrospect, it would have been nice to capture the moment on a cell phone. For the record, I did not receive the answer on that particular evening, however, it must have been weighing heavily on the parents' mind. As a parent myself, the infinite wisdom we supposedly possess, is sometimes put to the test. My parents understood the inquisitive mind of their seven year old, redirection was a necessity.
My sister and I always knew we were adopted or perhaps I don't remember not knowing. Our parents always told us we were special, again I don't remember what being "un-special" felt like. Expectations of good behavior, listening and respecting adults, always doing our best, all seemed quite normal and "un-special," every kid in the neighborhood was held to the same expectations. Teresa and I talked about this; she was a middle child and by all accounts, that was special; older brothers had to take care of younger siblings and baby sister was coddled. The only downside of being the youngest, she was not old enough to participate in older child playtime........being the "baby" of our family, understanding of this privilege afforded to hierarchy of birth order was easy....not acceptable, but easy.
The concept of time for this seven year old was one of the few edicts of childhood I actually understood. Being told the baby stays in the mother's belly nine months, cool that was one month longer than the span from my birthday until Christmas. This I understood; exactly eight months after my birthday, I got presents again and at nine months after my birthday, my sister received her birthday presents. Cool, got it Mom! Redirection appeared to be moving along successfully.
For most of my life, needing to know "the reason behind the why" labelled me as an inquisitive mind. "Mom if I didn't come from your belly, were did I come from?" Seeing the look of "I told you so" being exchanged between the parents, I knew I'd struck a nerve, it was going to go either way; I'd get the explanation I'd been searching for or the "pile of poop" I was so often in, would rear its ugly head......again!
I'd learned, we were brought home from the hospital, my sister first and fifteen months later, I arrived. Both were labelled "gifts from God," hence the reason we were special. At seven years old, the thought of questioning gifts from the Almighty, unthinkable. The answer sufficed my curiosity. What I did learn, but did not realize for many years........my parents were the special people, gifts to two small girls who lives may never have intertwined, except they were each granted not one, but two gifts for God, Mom and Dad.
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