Two years ago, Caroline Rose Reid pushed her way in to the world. She looked around the room with wide eyes and did not say anything. The nurses pinched her, rubbed her, washed, poked needles in her and still she looked at them and did not say anything. Then, she closed her eyes and went to sleep.
Two days later and she still had not cried. She was in a warming bed in the Special Care Nursery where, when she woke, a nurse was right there to change her, call me to come feed her, and otherwise hold her to keep her calm.
But Caroline was calm. She was taking it all in. The lights, the noises, the comfort. Why would she cry? She had it all.
The nurses laughed when we expressed concern over her lack of crying. “She’ll figure it out,” they insisted.
Were they ever right! Caroline is a bundle of energy and noise, a package of life and emotion. She laughs, she screams, she loves.
And we love her. Her first words each morning are a call for Paul. His first words are the question, “Can I go talk to Caroline?” (when her door is still closed in the morning).
Caroline follows us around and insists on “I do it!” and “Me!” She knows the concepts of “mine!” and “Share!” and won’t hesitate to tell you what she wants. She won’t hesitate to tell you want she does not want, too, and if she does not want what you want her to do, she will not let you do it.
She’s sensitive and selfish, crying with others who are sad (or asking “are you okay?”) and screaming if she does not get what she wants in any given moment.
She’s wiggly and cuddly, wiggly when it’s a quiet moment (such as sacrament meeting) and cuddly when the lights are low and she is sleepy.
She’s a bundle of fun, as she pretends: her fork is a dancing monkey, or her sippy cup of milk is sleepy, and wants a lullaby or she is a fish swimming through the bathtub.
She’s as tender as a new mother when she holds her baby dolls, singing the songs I sing to her.
She’s as wild as an animal as she runs into the water, jumping and splashing and dunking her own head under, only to come up sputtering and coughing with a laugh on her face.
We love Caroline. I can’t wait to see how this already talking toddler baby becomes a little girl in the next year. Although, I kind of want to hold her tight and cherish her toddler-hood for the next twenty years!
On September 11, 2001, I got up early because that was the only time my apartment of six was quiet. I read the entire New York Times and headed up to my early Economics class. When I got there, I learned of the attacks in New York.
