My daughter dictated this little essay to me just before her second birthday based on her experiences being a third child.
I’m almost two now, but I’ve already learned a thing or two. Like I don’t like to sleep alone. Yeah, parents nowadays try to break children but mine couldn’t break me. Started out with my own crib as most babies do, but that was really more like being in prison. Those wooden slats--of course my parents were too cheap to get me my own new crib, so I had to use my sisters' old, dangerous drop-side crib--were just like prison bars to me, keeping Mommy and Daddy beyond my reach. So as soon as I could, I showed them I could climb out. Of course, when you’re less than one year old, you’d think a parent would be there to catch you. Boy, was I ever wrong. My Mommy and Daddy were both in the room, yet I managed to do a half flip and land on the back of my head. My Daddy, who was closest, just stood there and watched. It was then that I realized my first big lesson in life—they leave the third child alone! That’s right. For better or worse, they leave the third child alone. When you’re the first child, they catch you before you fall, pick up immediately after you hurt yourself, etc. But for the third child, they’re different. Slower. More tired. I fell on my back from four feet in the air and they just stood there and watched. Man, that hurt so bad. In fact, I gave them my intermittent, high alert warning cry, which is when I let out a high pitched squeaky cry which alternates with a long gasp for air. It literally sounds like I’m dying, but even then they just held me and talked about whether or not they should take me to the hospital. I mean, we’re talking a potential closed head injury or broken neck, and they’re calmly discussing whether or not I should go to the emergency room. If it had been of my sisters at my age, it would have been an instant 9-1-1 call. But for me, a calm discussion. Finally, Mommy took me to the ER while Daddy stayed home with my sisters.
So after that experience, I realized I could be an independent, carefree girl, and that’s really what I’ve been. Except I really do not like to sleep alone. I mean, who thought of putting everyone in their own bedrooms? My Mommy used to nurse me to sleep, and then lay me down in my crib. Never liked that last part. Why can’t I just stay next to her? So I would wake up and scream and cry. That was when I realized another life lesson: they can’t take my long, blaring cry. After two other children, they no longer have the ability to outlast my potent extended, blaring cry. After battling two other girls about what they are going to wear, which color barrette matches their outfit, and such knock down, drag out topics as that, they have no energy to take on me and my crying. So they do whatever is necessary to shut me up. When they put me to bed at night, I demand an adult be with me until I fall asleep. They’ve only tried to lay me down and have me go to sleep on my own once. Boy, did they ever pay big for that one. I screamed and wailed so much that my Daddy was banging his head on the wall, crying. After that ordeal, any time I woke up and realized that I was alone, one of them came to get me. Once I got them good and trained, if I wake up at night and find myself alone, I just get up and go into their bedroom and get right in the middle. They never refuse.