Bonus Baby


Happy Birthday, Carole!

Today is our youngest daughter's birthday.  The youngest of the family is 21.  Note that I deliberately do not call her the baby of the family--she has not been a baby for a long time.  Carole is the youngest, a distinction I insist upon if anyone comments that she is the 'baby', a distinction which she finds humorous rather than crucial, but that might be because I have never introduced her as 'the baby' and made her roll her eyes, all grown up as she is.  My father was the youngest of three brothers and hated being referred to as the baby, so my mother made this same distinction with my youngest brother, simply smiling and saying to whomever that he hadn't been a baby since he turned three.

Somehow various people over the years have confused us, calling me Carole.  Now, I am used to being identified as (name of child)'s mom, but I have never been addressed by their names.  Once I filled out an order for baking supplies from the stake Relief Society as a cooperative venture, and my bag came in marked, "Carole Stoddard."  I promise I filled it out as "Marian."  I think that the person making up the bags had been a Girl's Camp leader, and simply skipped a mental beat.

Everyone adores her, so maybe I get a little extra credit for belonging to her or because she belongs to me.  She may be the youngest, but she is now grown up, and we are proud of the person she is. And if she is having a bad time and I put my arms around her in sympathy and murmur, "Mmmm, poor baby," well, that's a different thing entirely.

Comments

  1. AlisonHFebruary 13, 2012 at 2:57 PM

    Carole is a sweetheart. You did a good job, and so has she.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Don MeyerFebruary 14, 2012 at 9:04 AM

    A Happy Birthday to your youngest!
    Good choice of words to avoid 'baby'. Reminds me of when people would ask me when my wife wasn't around, "Where's your better half?" My response was always "OTHER half!", and she would do the same.

    Youngest? I was the youngest in my family; my mother the youngest in hers; my father the youngest in his.

    ReplyDelete

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