More than once I've been inspired to write about Carys, our middle child, our special one. I can't seem to finish a post to my satisfaction, though. If my goal is to paint a picture of who she is, to chronicle the moments that are important, I fail at every turn. She is so unlike any child I've encountered so far, that I truly struggle to make her personality come to life on the page. She came into the world in the most unusual way, in a hospital in Joplin, Missouri that would be wiped off the map less than 5 years later. She was born with a hearing loss in her left ear and an intolerance to lactose. She was born quietly and without fanfare, big blue eyes that stared intently at anyone who held her.
We are learning to drum to the beat of a different marcher in our family. A few examples: she refused to sleep anywhere but in my arms for the first year and a half of her life. When other children were busy playing with toys, Carys was trying to take them apart to figure out how they worked. At pre-school screening, the evaluators had to take us aside for a special consultation because Carys wouldn't do the tests the way they asked her to do them. When they asked her to catch a bean bag with her hands to test her motor skills, she caught the bag between her knees. On purpose. She said she didn't want to catch it with her hands. When they asked her to list as many colors as she could (looking for the basic 8) she listed 14 colors and called them names like "lemon-yellow, and grass green, and indigo." Seriously. When they asked her how high she could count, she announced that she could count to 100. Then she said, "one, two, skip-a-few, 99, 100." I have no earthly idea where she came up with that, it was the first time I had ever heard it. The bottom line was that the evaluators were unsure how to score her development because it was on such a different plane than what they were looking for.
She says the most unexpected things at the most unexpected times, and Aaron will sometimes shoot me a look that says "who the heck IS this child?" And I don't have the slightest clue. Take last weekend, for instance. The weather has been crazy around here lately, and we had a little bit of thunder the other night. Carys and Cooper were brushing their teeth for bed when Cooper told me he was a little bit scared of thunder. I launched into a flowery description of angels bowling in heaven (we had just been bowling that weekend, and I was having a private little personal high-five at how nicely those circumstances appeared to work together) and the entire time Carys was just listening intently with narrowed eyes. In the middle of patting myself on the back for the smile that now appeared on Cooper's face, I was suddenly stopped short by Carys who panned, "Mom. That is not true. Thunder is caused by cold air and warm air colliding in the atmosphere."
Oh. Well thank you, Miss Meteorologist.
I anticipate that raising this one is going to be interesting. Of all her quirks and notions, however, the one trait that has devloped the most prominently is a soft heart. This child has empathy for others and for animals to such a degree that it is more than likely that living on the farm is going to make a vegetarian out of her some day. One day we passed a semi-truck on the gravel down from our house. Carys said, "Mom, why is that semi full of pigs?"
Before I could answer, Emma says, "Well, where do you think bacon comes from?"
There was a shocked silence in the back seat and I was wondering how in the world I was going to get out of this one. (Thank you very much, Emma-Smarty-Pants.)
Carys gasped, "Mom! You mean, people EAT them?"
I still had no good answer, I just kind of coughed a couple of times, floundering.
Then, she saved me. With a choke and a sob, she said, "Well people don't eat them until they're dead, though, right?"
Whew. "No, Carys, we definitely don't eat them until they are dead. We wouldn't want them to go to waste, right?" And that seemed to satisfy her. She does still eat meat, and she doesn't seem to mind watching 60 live chickens get loaded into a truck and then 60 frozen chickens coming back in coolers, but maybe that's because she hasn't thought too much about the in-between yet.
Every time we watch a movie and the impending death of a character approaches, I need to be holding her on my lap and talking her through it. She grieved over the Lion King's Mufasa for days. She even cried when the scorpion killed the ant in Honey I Shrunk the Kids. It hurts me to see her hurting, but I don't really want it to change. There is so little compassion in this big bad world sometimes, that a sensitive soul might be just what it needs.
I worry sometimes about the "middle-child" dynamic that I always read about. Being the oldest child in my own family, I don't really relate. But I am definitely sensitive to it; I'm on the look-out for times when she is separate from the other two. She is very unlike her siblings, which is a dividing characteristic already. I just make sure she gets a lot of mommy-time. I want her to know that I celebrate her differences, and love her all the more for them.
My greatest wish for her is that she is able to hold on to that sensitive heart; that the world outside will be unable to harden it when she encounters its obstacles. I'm sure somewhere along the line she will be hurt, maybe have her heart broken a few times. And that's not necessarily a bad thing; it builds character and makes us unique in our life experiences. But I just want the core of who she is to remain that free-spirited, forward-thinking, sassy, gentle, soft-hearted person that I was blessed with.
