This little girl. She is a riot. She is stubborn and ridiculously funny, and she is definitely not afraid to tell you exactly what she thinks or how something should be done. She is strong.
And she was not exactly keen on having her picture taken. But hey, Aunt Carrie is strong and stubborn too.
This little girl is smart and sweet and funny. She has the personality the size of the Milky Way. And a prissy attitude to match. Her imagination never ceases to amaze me, and her smile can melt my heart. She loves Chapstick and to have her nails painted, but she’s the cutest thing in her tiny Carhartt bibs too. She’s much like a Sour Patch kid. Tough and salty when she needs to be, but sweet and soft on the inside.
She turns 3 in a few days, and I can’t life without her. She’s a challenge, but she’s worth it. I can’t wait to see where life takes her or how she wrangles it.
My niece Lindsay is one of the best moms I know. She lives for her 2 kids, and she never takes time for herself. Definitely not as much as she should anyway. She recently got engaged to Todd (Dayton and Layla’s daddy) and today is is birthday. For Father’s Day, you might remember that she asked me to shoot some pictures of the kiddos for his present. He loved the shots, but he also asked why there were none of her.
So this week, she picked out her favorite outfits, did her hair, and put on makeup. And we went out shooting.
They turned out better than expected, and I can’t wait to hear what Todd thinks.
Isn’t she just the cutest thing, even when she feels like crap?
She had her tonsils and adenoids out on Thursday, and from then on went on a throwing-up spree all afternoon and night. Then she spiked a fever, but it broke pretty quickly so the hospital let her go home.
Makinna and Raelyn missed her. They drew pictures for me to take to the hospital, and I’m sure they did enough talking for her while she’s healing.
Here’s to hoping she is back at it and ready for school!
Lindsay wanted to get some shots of the kids for Todd for his Father’s Day so we took them to Ward-Meade Park one evening last week for a small shoot. I always have fun shooting these sweeties. Dayton was bored right away, but we managed to get some good ones before a total meltdown. And Layla, well, she is just Layla, sweet and smiley. The colors were great. The sun was in about just the right place.
And they turned out pretty great, if I do say so myself.
It’s because she is talking to Uncle Greg.
They all love him, but Makinna has claimed him as her own. She tells me all the time that she loves him, and she gets shy when he is around.
So cute.
Tinkerpot got new glasses. Her first ever pair.
Now we have 2 littles in our family with glasses, Kendall and Tink. Something about teeny tiny glasses are just so damn cute.
This kid is crazy. And beautiful and sweet and stubborn and adorably clingy on my afternoons off. And she was thrilled to spend the time off last Tuesday with me.
We didn’t do much, but between Chapstick applications and singing her Boom Boom song (Nicki Minaj!) and sneaking sips of Dr Pepper, we had lots of giggles and aunt/niece time. I wish I could take more days off just to hang out with her.
Isn’t it hard to believe that the tiny baby born what seems like yesterday is now a toddler? (Wait, is 2 years still considered toddler?)
She had a great day, and she ran around going “my birfdayyy” before everyone arrived. It must have felt like forever to her because she sat and waited and tried to put her shoes on. Once everyone got there, she was shy though. That kid. Her face lit UP when we started singing to her, and she absolutely loved the attention.
A great two years!
+ Tink lost her first baby tooth (actually the dentist just went ahead and pulled it because it was loose anyway). I think she was proud that she bled without crying. Tough kid. The least of her worries is a silly little tooth.
+ I got my own loan, with my own credit, based on my own income, and I BOUGHT MY FIRST PIECE OF LAND. Probably the last piece of land I’ll ever buy too. By this time next year, I should be blogging about a new home. keep your fingers crossed for me.
Makinna is one of those kids that will argue with you, not until she is right, just until you give up arguing and she can win. She is a sweet little thing who fiercely sticks up for her sisters, but she is also their biggest tormenter. When she whispers a secret it’s usually “I love you” or “Can I have a snack?”
She loves the flowers outside and dressing up in pretty shoes and dresses. She loves to twirl. And one of my favorites, she loves hanging out while Aunt Carrie snaps silly pictures of her.
Last weekend we celebrated Darcy’s birthday, and tonight will be her daughter Lindsay’s celebration for her 21st. It’s hard to believe that my niece is that old already. 21 seems like forever ago to me, but it was a good age. I plan on helping her make 21 a good age for her too.
With only about 5 years between us, we’ve never really had a aunt-niece relationship. More like cousins or sisters. When I was a teenager and finally got a car, I’d go pick her up to go to the mall or wherever. We were close. We still are, but she has her own little family now (Dayton is such a riot). She knows, though, that if she needed anything, I’d be there no matter what.
Happy birthday (party!) Lindsay!
Pretty girl Raelyn turned on this past Friday, and we spent yesterday at Chuck E Cheese celebrating. She was a riot. I was nervous as to how she would react to all the people, but she did awesome. No crying, no fussing, nothing except smiles and giggles. Then she fell asleep on my lap full of frosting and Sprite. It was a great day.
Uncle Art was my mother’s brother. He died when I was three years old. Sleeping pills and sadness were his death.
I have been thinking about Uncle Art a lot lately, although I’m not sure why. The only real memory I have of him was not too long before his death. he brought me a huge stuffed Smurf. I don’t know where he got it or why, but I remember being in awe because it was so much bigger than I was. I realize now that it probably wasn’t so big; I was just small. Still in my mind, I can still see it looking down at me, and Uncle Art was laughing. Amazing that I can remember it from only 3 years old.
He was a poet too, and I think it makes me that much sadder about not having the opportunity to know him or talk to him or understand him. Even with his schizophrenia, I think he and I probably would have been close. After all, I seem to be around crazy people every single day anyway. There are three people who I wish could see me now and be proud, and he is one of them (the other two are Grandpa Koch and Grandpa Williams).
It makes me wonder what my own nieces and nephews will remember about me. Makinna is 3 now, and she and Tink already spout off about things that happened last summer and even before. The older ones sometimes say “remember when….” too. Hopefully, if something were to happen to me, they would have good, fun memories of the time we’ve spent together too.
Isn’t she gorgeous?
She snuggled with me last weekend, the first time in a long time. Normally, she thrashes all over or wants to sleep on the couch by herself, but Friday night she nestled herself into the crook of my shoulder and hardly moved all night, besides kicking the covers off about a million times. She still loves Aunt Carrie and hasn’t quite grown out of snuggling yet. I think she knows that something is going on that we can’t quite explain to her. She’s not stupid and has been through enough medical stuff in her (almost) 5 years to know when something isn’t right. She’s been extra lovey dovey and needy for attention and super whiny when things don’t go her way.
Ashley and Mark got her test results back yesterday, and the blood tests show that she has a antinuclear antibody disease….but the doctors aren’t really sure which one. It could be so many things, like lupus, thyroid disease, pulmonary fibrosis, cancer, arthritis, anemia, among others. She has appointments in KC in a few weeks, but until then we’re just going to baby her a bit and figure out what can be done on our end. If anything were really serious, we want to be ready as a family to do whatever we can.
Here’s to hope.
Tink (Serenity), December 19, 2009
I think that sometimes we’re given challenges in life that maybe only we are able to handle, things made for us to build and test our character. Maybe we’re given these things to teach other people about compassion and what it means to see past differences. I’m not talking about my paralysis this time. I’m talking about Tink.
When she was born, she was born without the radial bone in either of her arms, which caused her hands (mainly her thumbs) to be undeveloped too. After three surgeries (one to straighten her left forearm and two on her hands to reposition her pointer fingers as thumbs), she has four digits on each hand, instead of five.
This year, she started preschool, and in just the past few months, the surgeries and differences (I HATE the word deformities) in her hands are not normal to her anymore. They are painstakingly obvious because now she has 25 other kids that point them out to her. We, as a family, have never made a big deal about it because she can use them and get things done with adaptations and a little patience. Her hands are just hers, and they aren’t even noticeable to me anymore.
But she has been noticing, and it kills me. She told me last week “I don’t want just four fingers anymore. You have five, and Makinna (her sister) has five. I want five.” I almost cried, but I did the best I could to reassure her that four fingers are just fine, and that she is special. I don’t know how long that line will work, but for now she seems content knowing she is special.
She is only four years old. She shouldn’t know any of the evils of the world yet, the misconceptions, the cruelties. It makes me want to just wrap her up and protect her until she can understand fully that her disability is a part of her that makes me her beautiful. Even though she can drive me crazy sometimes, she truly is one of the most beautiful, sweetest little girls (okay, so maybe I am bias being her aunt and all). I hate that her future is surely going to be riddled with things that will make her want to cry and run away, but I think that she is strong and stubborn enough, even now at four, to get past those things and be a better person for it.
She’s tough, and I know she’ll be fine.
Miss Serenity
When times seem gloomy, all she has to do is shriek her little “hello” to brighten my day. She knows just the funny face to make me laugh, and she can always sucker me into watching Strawberry Shortcake DVDs , even though they make me want to pull my hair from my scalp. With bright eyes and an innocent little smile, she can get me to do pretty much whatever she wants.
She is a handful, with a craziness all her own, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m sure the rest of the family feels the same.
Even at three years old, she is one of the most beautiful souls that I have ever had the pleasure of encountering. I can’t imagine what life would be like without her. Through her surgeries and recoveries, she remains the strongest, most exuberant little girl, and I am honored to have her call me “Aunt Carrie.”
