Whenever anyone asks me if I am the oldest, middle or youngest child I never know what to answer.
I had the joy of being the youngest in our family of 3 kids for almost 9 years! What a gig! By then my parents were pretty much broken in by my two older siblings and they were tired. Three kids in 4 years will do it to you.
They were tired. I decided that wasn’t good enough and escalated it to sheer and utter exhaustion by spending the first 6 weeks of my life with my days and nights mixed up. I was the sleep all day, party all night kind of baby. Repeated of course to an extent in my college years 🙂
Eventually I snapped out of it but my father always reminded me of it in a kind way with a rather pained look on his face. Once I had children of my own I realized they were in pure survival mode and I prayed my own babies did not put on a repeat performance.
By the time I came along the parenting rules had been reduced to loving us, keeping us fed and safe. Anything else was a bonus.
I’m sure I went to bed with dirty feet, ate cookies for breakfast, and skipped naps.
It was glorious.
My father loved to tell the story of coming home to find me in the high chair eating my dinner. Our dog Spot, who was always by my side, was right next to me. I took a bite off my fork and then promptly forked another bite and fed it to Spot. I can almost hear the “ewwws” as you read this.
He mentioned it to my mother (who was still tired) that we were sharing a fork and she very nonchalantly said ” Yes I know, it has been going on for awhile” and then promptly glared at him. He shrugged and walked away.
I was a little older here but obviously sharing my cake with Spot 🙂
Like I said youngest kids have the best gig.
I have no idea how long that went on and it does give me pause. On the other hand I seem to have a very robust immune system and not much grosses me out. Go figure.
My good deal at being the youngest ended with the birth of my sister Lisa. I was not upset. My parents gave me a real live baby to play with and love.
I was in heaven.
I was also displaced. I wasn’t the oldest. I wasn’t the oldest girl. I wasn’t the youngest. I was sort of in middle limbo.
Turns out this was a great place to be. Who knew? I was pretty much on my own. No serious expectations. Those all fell on my older siblings. Didn’t have to be cute, Lisa had that wrapped up. Good thing too because I went through a rather long awkward stage where I was all arms and legs and had no idea what to do with them.
I ended up enjoying being spoiled as the baby and then enjoyed the freedom of sort of being the middle child.
This all came to mind when I was watching TJ Therrien on Instagram and Facebook and all his videos about oldest, middle and youngest. Somehow I relate to both the middle and youngest which is the best and the worst combo of birth order.
Take a look:
https://www.facebook.com/reel/708008660834264?fs=e&s=TIeQ9V&mibextid=0NULKw
I am both the middle and youngest here! hahahahaha
Oh well I survived and I wouldn’t change it. Well Paul might. This middle/youngest child married a firstborn. A very organized firstborn. I know I drive him nuts but he still loves me so there is that.
In any case maybe I should invent a new word. Something along the lines of “Yiddle” for my birth order place.
Now excuse me while I try to find the matches to my mismatched shoes 🙂
As Always keep triing,
Jennifer
P.S. If the technology gremlins behave you too can get this right into to you inbox almost every Tuesday :)! Just fill out the very annoying pop up in this post!
All grammatical and spelling errors are my gift to you and may you have a magical day or several 🙂
I was recently published in the book ” So God Made a Mother” ( you can order it here) and I am working on a yet to be named novel. My six grandchildren keep me young and my very organized hubby Paul tolerates my very unorganized yiddle ( middle and youngest) self. Opposites do attract 🙂