Happy Birthday Hilary!!
Today, Hilary turned 19 years old. Hannah and I went out to UMass to take her to dinner. We found a great pasta place appropriately named Pasta e Pasta. I would post pictures, but I can’t figure how to get them off my new cell/camera. Hilay received a new fake Prada bag that I got on my latest adventure to New York City this past weekend.  I have some great stories to tell about how I obtained it and will post more later this week.Â
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One short story in honor of Hilary day: On Hilary’s second birthday, I was very pregnant with her sister Hannah. Her father and I didn’t have enough money for a second crib, so we bought Hilary a big girl bed for her birthday. We figured we would get her used to the bed for a few months so it would ease the transition of the new baby into the house. She was so excited and eager to help put it together. She helped put her new Sesame Street sheets on and couldn’t wait for night night. She put her dolls and bears to sleep in it all afternoon.
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When bed time came she got in her PJs, brushed her teeth and stood in front of the bed staring at it. Blankie in hand, favorite two middle fingers in her mouth she looked at me and said, “Skoosiver?” She said it again and again. She took her fingers out of her mouth and said, “Skoosiver?” and twisted her tiny hand like she was opening a door. I couldn’t figure out what she wanted and she wouldn’t get in the bed. Finally she went over to the closet where we had stored the now disassembed cribby. This time the light clicked on in my head. She wanted the screwdriver to put back together her cribby. I teared up immediately and scooped up my little girl who wanted to stay a baby another day. That was the worst night’s sleep I ever got. Hil, I and a half baked Han in a tiny twin.
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Happy Birthday Hilary. Stay a baby as long as you like. I don’t mind a bit.
I love this story! Very sweet. ‘skoosiver’. I have no memory of my kids transitioning to a bed. I know they were about 3 years old but that’s all I remember. Happy Birthday to all.
Comment by Chris — February 26, 2007 @ 1:05 am
We all must have a fondness for the “early” stories. Maybe any stories about our kids.
But am I the only one who thinks of Hil K as older than her years? Without her skoosiver I think she’s done her best to stay ahead of her crib-dismantling mom.
Happy birthday, Hil.
Comment by michael — February 26, 2007 @ 5:50 am
I’m with you, Michael — HK has even shown mother qualities of her own in group settings which belie any instincts to babyhood. But all mothers are daughters, of which their mothers often strive to remind them (and of which they sometimes would do well to remember … ).
A welcome and well-told tale, Jen, thanks! And Happy Birthday, Hilary!
Comment by adam — February 26, 2007 @ 8:37 am
I have always told Hilary what an old soul she is. She comprehended, spoke and read early. Maybe it was my insecurity as a new mother, but at 6 months old I felt she would look at me and think, “You really think you can do this?” When she was around 12 she saw me reading yet another child rearing book and she said, “It makes me nervous when I see you reading those books, like you don’t know what you are doing.” I said, “I have no idea what I’m doing! You are my experimental child.” It’s just recently that I realized my parents had no idea what they were doing either. I guess you just arm yourself the best you can and plow through.
Comment by Jen — February 26, 2007 @ 9:27 am
Awe mom that was so cute! 19 feels so old, I think it would be nice to be 2 again for a little while.
My birthday was great! Thanks to Daryl for visiting Saturday and mom and Hannah on Sunday, and all the great gifts they brought. And thanks for all the blog birthday wishes.
I can’t wait to come home this weekend and see Matt, Sarah, Kenz, and whoever else will be back for spring break!
Comment by Hil K — February 26, 2007 @ 1:16 pm
“Maybe it was my insecurity as a new mother” Jen, we’ve all done the math. How could you not have been insecure?
“19 feels so old, I think it would be nice to be 2 again for a little while.” And, Hil, could you pick another age to regress to?
Comment by michael — February 26, 2007 @ 1:28 pm
True Michael. For me it was scariest thing in the world being a new parent. I couldn’t believe they let me bring her home. No license, no classes, no experience necessary. They let anyone be a parent! My only thought was, “Keep her alive until the next doctor appointment. Just keep her alive.”
And 2 was the perfect age for Hil. It was BH (before Hannah). She was the boss and she knew it.
Comment by Jen — February 26, 2007 @ 1:49 pm
Ah ha. I responded reflexively. Matt was not terrible at two either.
Comment by michael — February 26, 2007 @ 4:47 pm
So many threads! So little time! So, I’ll just pick up this one, only. (It’s three or four all by itself.)
Happy Birthday Hilary! You know, I find it amazing that both Jen and I, in conjunction with our spouses?, picked the one-L version of “Hi-ary” while so soon thereafter the two-L became ubiquitous.
Michael, I’m glad you explained your “pick another age” request. I was completely confused by it, I guess because La Gata got to that stage early, and La Chica never really went there. Maybe the fact that she didn’t use words at all until age 2 1/2 threw her off.
Looking forward to your faux Prada story, Jen! And thanks for seconding the request for the next installment on Making Room for Mack (and not unrelated — Helen’s Home Town is still “upcoming”, right?)
Comment by Jennifer — February 26, 2007 @ 8:27 pm
Another age… I have a terrible memory so I don’t really remember much before I was probably 7, just a few monumentous events like when I smacked my head on the coffee table and got a scar or when I heard the news that my parents were getting divorced.
Elementary school was ok but I didn’t have a steady group of friends and don’t remember too much of it. I don’t see how anyone could say they enjoyed Junior High school which was overflowing with awkward pre-teen drama and everyone having to dress, think, and act exactly the same way or face excommunication. The beginning of High School was good but we were all still finding out who were were and what friends we wanted to surround ourselves with.
The only time I would want to go back to was the last year or two of high school. That’s when our group really came together. We began to be comfortable with ourselves and one another. We got cars, jobs, and freedoms that were not previously afforded to us. The time after the SAT’s and applying to college and before leaving for college was probably the most amazing time we shared. It’s the last year when you don’t have to worry about needing to pay bills and deciding what you want to do with the rest of your life. We were in a blissful transtitional period from belonging to a small town and our childhood into belonging to the collegiate world and to ourselves. Senior year was awesome.
Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love college. But everything I do here directly impacts the rest of my life. Sometimes I want to go back to a simpler time.
Comment by Hil K — February 27, 2007 @ 4:14 pm
That’s a real nice wrap on a young life that both helps me understand what I was watching in my own house and allows me to think how different your lives were/are from mine. I had much more time in mine to play, and by the end of high school I had only a few throwaway friendships. Thanks, one “l” Hil.
Comment by michael — February 27, 2007 @ 10:16 pm
You write so nice Hilary. I’d like to see more of it. I promise not to edit. Promise.
Comment by Jen — February 28, 2007 @ 9:59 am
If Diane threatened me like that I’d never add a thing.
Comment by michael — February 28, 2007 @ 10:32 am
The difference is she does not take kindly to criticism, constructive or otherwise.
Comment by Jen — February 28, 2007 @ 10:47 am
I sometimes slap Diane, but she accepts it as the cost of herself not being humiliated by my otherwise illiterate ramblings, and, I think, the equivalent of kind of a tax for being married to me. A tax not attacks which some couples might perceive such.
Comment by michael — February 28, 2007 @ 11:44 am
I take offense to that mom.
Haha just kidding.
Comment by Hil K — February 28, 2007 @ 1:17 pm
Hil K, I’m so glad you wrote this. (I’d been feeling sad about something you purportedly said 6 months or so ago, and now I can let that go.) The thing is — there’s those cycles all the way through life. Times when you feel like everything matters a LOT for the future, times when you get to coast on what you’ve figured out and/or set up for yourself in the last stretch. I think the coast-and-enjoy periods vs. the freak-out-with-the-pressure periods hit each* individual a little differently. (And sometimes people partner up with someone on a different cycle to provide balance, and sometimes that doesn’t work so well.) (*Well, maybe not each differently, because it sounds like your main group in those last two years of HS were in your stage then … but those stages hit my two daughters very differently.) My point is: this too shall pass. I think Sophmore year is often a good one for just enjoying.
Comment by Jennifer — February 28, 2007 @ 6:48 pm