Cardiogirl: 19% body fat 100% fun

Back on Labor Day, I believe, I wrote about our oldest daughter and her ever-present energy that knows no bounds. I think it was Yankeechick who said she would be interested in hearing about our other two daughters. So today I shall tell you about our middle child, Allison.

My husband and I call Allison our miracle baby. However she told us recently that she doesn’t like being called a baby, since she is four and a half already. So we have amended that title to our miracle daughter.

When I was pregnant with Allison she was very calm and didn’t move a whole lot in utero. It turns out that was a very accurate predictor of her personality. She is very stoic and calm in real life. She and I are very similar, personality-wise, and we get along like two peas in a pod. There was one rushed, panicked trip to the hospital when I was roughly six months pregnant.

I hadn’t felt her move for about six hours, even though I was walking about cleaning and vacuuming. I ate some candy in an effort to make her move around. Nothing. So we made trip to check things out. The doctor did an ultrasound and she was fine, just hanging out quietly, sucking her thumb inside the placenta.

That was a huge relief.

She was also very big. She measured over 9 lbs. by ultrasound three weeks before my due date, so she was induced early. When she was born the doctor was concerned that her shoulder might be dislocated, due to her size, and I had to listen carefully to his instructions as I struggled to free her from her home. It all worked out fine and I ended up pushing her out in five minutes.

That was a miracle in itself because her heart rate was dipping very low as I was pushing her out. When she was born the doctor discovered she had a “true knot” in her umbilical cord. He showed both me and Mr. C the actual cord. It was like a piece of rope tied into a regular knot. No space in the middle of the knot. Nice and tight.

I was dazed from giving birth and just feeling relief that the baby was out, so I viewed the knotted umbilical cord as an interesting side note. Period. Mr. C told me later that both the nurse and the doctor were very shocked and very somber. The doctor said 99% of the time, when a baby is born with a knot in the umbilical cord the outcome is tragic. The baby does not survive the delivery.

Mr. C said the nurse really went on and on about how amazing it was that Allison survived. Again, I was in my own world reeling from physical exhaustion. Allison was only 8 lbs. 10 ounces (three weeks early, remember) and based on how I felt, I was disappointed that she wasn’t nine pounds. Because it felt like I delivered nine pounds.

When I had gotten some sleep and my weepy maternal hormones kicked in later I was in awe that Allison survived. I really do feel it’s a miracle that she is with us, healthy and happy.

She is so calm and so mellow, but she’s very funny. When Katie (her older sister) was in the ER with an asthma attack and very scared it was Allison who put on a puppet show jumping out from behind the curtain. Allison sang and danced to cheer Katie up. She is the perfect bridge between her older sister and her younger sister. Allison is the one who tries to make the other two feel better in their times of need. She is very nurturing and empathetic, it’s just in her nature.

When Katie cries about a lost stuffed animal and we are looking for Blue Bear, it is Allison who rubs Katie’s arm and tells her it will be alright. Allison will get Katie a different stuffed animal while the search party ventures under couches and into the basement in search of the bear that went AWOL.

Allison will put a positive spin on negative events.

And Allison will sum it all up when the crisis has passed. She’ll say, “See Katie, we just had to look a little bit and then we found Blue Bear,” as she gives her sister a hug. “Now he’s safe and sound.”

That upbeat demeanor also works to get Allison in compromising positions. She is quiet and sneaky like a stealth bomb. Last winter, I was in the kitchen when I found a couple snippets of light brown hair on the floor. Katie and Allison had been cutting paper and gluing it to a notepad, so they were using scissors.

I followed the trail of hair to the corner of the kitchen and found a larger clump of hair. I knew immediately it was Allison’s hair, because Katie’s hair is dark brown. When I called for Allison to come into the kitchen from the living room she walked in with a closed-lipped smile and her arms behind her back. She only smiles like that when she has done something that she knows I will not be happy about.

I could see the left side of her hair had been cut off above the ear and I knew she did it herself, because she is right-handed. The right side of her hair was still long.

I asked her to put her hands in front of her. She smiled wider, lips still pressed together, and handed me the child-sized scissors that had bits of her hair on them. I asked her why she cut her own hair.

She said she wanted short hair, like her younger sister Emily. The next day I took her to SuperCuts so a professional could fix her hair. I usually trim all of our kids’ hair, but this was beyond my fledgling abilities. It took some time, but I got used to the cut and actually liked it after a while.

Last night, Allison took me to a new parenting realm. She got gum stuck in her hair. Mr. C was ready to cut the clump out, but I knew Google would not fail me. Five minutes later I had learned that the oil in peanut butter will make the gum dissolve. Then a vigorous hair washing with shampoo will get rid of the oil from the peanut butter.

Allison has really taught me not to sweat the small stuff. She explains why she does the stuff she does and that helps me understand what she was thinking. Somehow, knowing that she thought the refrigerator and the hot water tank in the basement would look so much prettier with green marker designs all over them helps me deal with the clean up effort.

Well, knowing what she was thinking and having the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser at my side make it easier. But in reality, Allison has helped me see things in a new light. She is very expressive and she has taught me that every day items and events can always be made more exciting and there’s usually a solution that can be found after searching Google.

When I walk in her kid-sized 12 shoes, life seems more adventurous and more fun.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 7th, 2007 at 5:33 am and is filed under Parenting, Tips and Tricks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.