This one's for you, Maddie!

My daughter Maddie, who is 17, was sitting on the staircase by my office with her computer in her lap.  She commented that she read my blog, and did I know that?  I said that I didn't and that I was surprised that she did.  (She has never been a big reader!)  Then she said that she really only liked the ones that mentioned her.  Which got me to thinking.  I follow a blog where the woman writes these amazing posts on the birthdays of her children.  They are such beautiful and amazing tributes and I am always quite moved.  Her children are young, but they will always have that.

So this one's for you, Maddie!  (If you click on any of the pictures, they will get big!)



Maddie was born about seven years after my first child, Hallie.  This was completely on purpose -- I truly did not have the capacity at the time to take on anything more than one child, a full-time job, etc.  But as the years went by, both Peter and I definitely knew we wanted more kids.  So my sister and I chatted one day and decided that we would both get pregnant together, and we figured out the math so that we would end up with summer babies (and the summer to hang on the dock in the sun!)

Which is exactly what happened.  Maddie and her cousin Emma are nine days apart.  We have a scandalous amount of pictures of the two of them together -- it was a photo shoot just about every time.  They were such cute, cute, cute babies with entirely different personalities.  And that summer (they were born in June) we did spend countless hours on the dock.  But relaxing?  Ummm, no.  I remember spending an inordinate amount of time trying to get them to sleep.  We had constructed a sort of tent out of a Sunguard structure and then tarps to keep the sun off their white little baby skin.  And we would put them in there in their carriages and truly believe that they would snooze while we hung in the sun.  Yeah.  No.  Maddie was never what one would call a good napper.  She liked to fuss for hours prior -- and it was very, very exasperating!  I can remember coming home from work and she would be in her bouncy seat on the counter, and she would just cry.  I would try to nurse her, to comfort her, to do ANYTHING.  But that is what she wanted to do, and that is what she did!

She was independent and enjoyed exploring on her own.  It makes me laugh now, to see her dressed this way, because dresses just never were her.  I tried.  Hallie had worn dresses exclusively as a young child, and they were so much fun to buy.  Maddie wore dresses when she didn't have all that much control at the age of two -- but it wasn't that much longer after this that she took charge of her own appearance.

She may be smiling sweetly here, but she had another bag packed with "her" clothes for after this picture was taken!  I loved this dress, but she did not.  She said it was too long and when she played on the floor it got in the way.  So in truth this picture does not depict what Maddie was like at 3.  She also had a younger brother at this time and was not particularly pleased with the situation.  It took a number of years before she viewed him as anything more than an intrusion on her ordered life!  At this age she was very neat, she dressed neatly and she enjoyed playing with her Legos or laying on the floor drawing.  She had two best friends at school (daycare)  Emily and Nichole, and even spent the night at Emily's.  (This may have been the first and last time, if memory serves me right, that she actually did this!)

This is Maddie's third grade (I am pretty sure) class and you can see she doesn't look too happy. (she is on the left on the floor wearing the red and black striped shirt and jeans.) Maddie did not take to school right away -- in fact, it was very hard for her, she didn't want to be left there.  I found it a little strange because she had done very well in the two daycare's that she went to -- one in Manchester and then at Windy Hill in New London.  She made friends easily in both, but something changed when she went to school (real school).  On the first day of school I had to stay for a long time so that she could get acclimated.  But I could tell she never felt truly comfortable there.

You can tell in her face that she's not in her comfort zone.  But I didn't really know what to do about it, to be honest.  She did fine academically, but it definitely was not an environment that fed her spirit.  Her daycare situations had appealed to her creative side and the hands-on experiental learning environment clearly suited her.  Public school did not serve any of my children well.  If it was an entity that could be harmed, I would do so.   For all the harm it did to my children.  BABOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Look at the difference in her facial expression -- the above is a school picture and the below is one I took.  Interesting.

This was about the time Maddie seriously became a boy!  Above she was still allowing me to keep some length to her hair; but then she became adamant that it be short.  Everyone mistook her as a boy; and she loved it!  She had a friend who was actually horrified the day he found out she was a girl!  She had scorned traditional female bathing suits and would just wear shorts and no shirt.  Then, well, I will admit, I insisted that she wear a regular bathing suit, well, because it was TIME!  And her poor friend said to his mother, why is Maddie wearing a girl's bathing suit?  HAHAHAHA!

Maddie loved to ski and it was when she was about 10 or so that she started to pull away from her pack of friends in terms of racing ability.  But she was never boastful or prideful about it -- she just took it in stride and never took herself too seriously.  You can see here that she is once again allowing me to keep her hair a little longer!  (Allowing me means that she isn't taking a pair of scissors and cutting it off herself.  But instead letting me take her to the hairdressers where it was cut right!)  She will still do this to this day -- grab a pair of scissors and demand that her hair be cut or else she will do it herself!  Both Peter and Nana will accomodate her -- but I actually know I can't cut hair, so I don't.  Not even a trim.  I'm sorry, I just like long hair!

Yes!  Like this length.  Maddie does not like this picture, taken when she was in 8th grade.  And it really doesn't depict who she is, because I don't even remember her hair being that long.  It must have been for a minute!

While Maddie did really well during her short career as a ski racer, a torn ACL received in France at the beginning of her freshman year at Proctor was really the end of that.  She skied the next two seasons, but her heart and body were never able to return to that sweet place where races are won and it's all still fun.

But her one consistent love has been softball.

I have enjoyed attending all the races and games -- Maddie is a natural athlete and fun to watch.  She did have a rotten soccer coach at school who decided to undermine her confidence and abilities and make her think less of herself -- but I guess he just stands in the same category as that creepy (entity!) Public School.  I guess we all need to have certain lessons in life -- or situations that seem so wrong -- in order to grow, and one thing Maddie has said she might want to do is coach sports.  She is going to major in sports management in college and no doubt she will take the lessons of being the victim of a heartless son-of-a-bitch and be a good and fair coach.  I have no doubt that she will.  She doesn't even get that mad at this person -- but then she doesn't see what he does to her.  Oh well.  Moving on.  Fortunately we have softball season to look forward to, and I am sure it will be a great one!

And so I will end this blog kinda sorta where it began -- on the dock!  But Maddie doesn't cry on the dock anymore!  She is a beautiful, caring, sensitive and smart young woman who still plays with squirt guns and tortures her brother!