Home Run Hatch Family News: Fireworks and a Birthday

This story begins on a warm October day in Georgia. I had woken with this metallic taste in my mouth that no amount of tooth brushing could wash away. I vaguely thought that this had happened before but could not quite place the cause. I thought I was getting sick or having some kind of allergic reaction to something. While unloading groceries from the van, I was consumed with pulling a memory from the fringes of my mind and solving this metallic taste problem. Finally it dawned on me; I was pregnant. It was the same taste I had in the early days of my first pregnancy. I had to wait about four weeks for the doctor's confirmation, but I knew life was forever changing.

My pregnancy was pretty uneventful. I had been fortunate to have had no pregnancy complications during my pregnancies and very little morning sickness. With Mimi my toothpaste made me sick. After trying numerous trial size toothpastes, I was able to tolerate the old fashion Crest toothpaste.

A difference during this pregnancy was not finding out the gender of the baby. With the boys I just had to know. During this pregnancy I was confident that the baby was a boy and I didn't need sonogram confirmation. I was going to use a beach theme for the baby's room and I only had a couple of baby items left from the boys' baby days so gender didn't really matter.

Doug and I decided to name our little boy Trey Ambrose. Trey for three because this would be boy number three and Ambrose for St. Ambrose. We had our original girl's name since the days of Dugger's birth and would use that on the off chance that we had a girl.

T-man was most excited by the thought of a new addition to the family. He cried when I told him that the baby would be a boy as he wanted a baby sister. (It's funny now because he and his sister fight like cats and dogs. Be careful what you wish for.) T-man would always touch my belly and talk to baby Trey.

Mimi was due mid-July but like the boys she decided to arrive on a holiday. I woke on the morning of July 4th with labor pains. I didn't want to have a long labor at the hospital but at the same time the hospital was about 30 miles from our home. So Doug and I headed off while my mom and youngest sister stayed home with the boys. On the way to the hospital Doug and I were trying to decide if we should change the baby's name to something more patriotic. Doug liked Patrick Henry and I liked Samuel. We never came to a clear consensus on the drive to the hospital. I figured we'd decide after we saw our baby boy.

Once at the hospital my labor stopped but the doctor decided to have me stay because of the long drive. So the doctor broke my water and labor resumed. Hard labor came quickly and the nurse delivered my baby girl as the doctor entered through the doorway. Surprise, surprise we had a teeny tiny baby girl. She was so tiny that none of the unisex clothes we had fit her. She wore a pink cotton onesie home from the hospital that was too big . My mom and I had to search the stores for premie clothes.

Because of my baby boy blunder, T-man would cuddle up to his baby sister and in his sweet adoring voice call her Trey and then say oops Mimi. As we settled into life with baby number three we've had quite the adventure.

When Mimi was about four months old Doug was out of town and she had an asthma attack. Dugger who has asthma was four or five years old before he showed asthmatic conditions. In the evening after she coughed and coughed and I paced and paced with her, I broke down and called our pediatrician's emergency number. This is something I had never done before and was amazed when he called me within minutes of my leaving a message. I'm crying and telling him Doug's out of town. I even hold the phone up to Mimi so he can hear her coughing (although I don't think he needed to hear her to know what was going on.) In the nicest, calmest voice he told me to give her the nebulizer treatment that I would give Dugger, told me exactly what to do, and to meet him at his office Saturday morning. Dr. C. holds a special place in my heart.

Let's see, when Mimi was three she was attacked by the neighbor's dog who escaped into our yard. The boys beat the dog off with their plastic golf clubs as Doug charged outside to chase the dog away. I held her still and swaddled in a sheet as the emergency room doctor put stitches in her head.

Oh yeah, even though she was born on the Fourth of July she hated fireworks. She has an acute sense of hearing and the exploding sounds hurt her ears. She used ear plugs, put her hands over her ears, and I had to put my hands over her ears too. Within the last two years she has finally enjoyed firework displays.

Mimi has been a lot of fun too. She is a great dancer and loves to perform. She's a very good swimmer and loves the summer swim team. She finally realized that she has phenomenal mathematical abilities and loves math.

She also loves to read. If you know Mimi you know that she is never without a book. The year the movie Bridge to Terabithia was coming out she wanted to read the book then see the movie. Knowing what a sensitive soul she is, I cautioned her about the sadness of the book. I even broke down and told her that a child dies at the end of the book. She still insisted that she could handle it so I gave her my copy of the book. Several evenings later, I hear this boo hoo hoo coming from the hallway and she launches herself in my arms. Sobbing she says, "You told me someone dies. You didn't tell me it was Leslie." That was our first venture into more mature books.

Last summer Mimi decided to reread all the Harry Potter books in order to get ready for Part I of the last movie. Her personal goal was seven books in seven days. Now, the last several books in the Potter series are quite lengthy. She told me that she'd have to finish the first three books in less than three days so she could spend more than one day each for the last couple of books. She sat and walked around all week with a book open. She was mad at me because I made her clean her room and help with the basement clean up during her goal week. She didn't make her goal because Grandma and Megan, Mimi's cousin, came to visit and she didn't want to be anti-social.

In the summer we both read A Midsummer's Night Dream with plans to go see the play at the Shakespeare Festival. This year she read My Sister's Keeper for a school assignment. We had quite the discussion about the book and disappointment in the movie.

Mimi loves animals and constantly wants to add more to our home and school brood. She is particularly interested in a mouse or hamster. She is quite phobic about spiders, bees, wasps, etc. so I'm a bit surprised that she followed in her brothers' zoo experiences and is a Jr. Zoo Keeper. She's handled hissing cockroaches, snakes, and has dissected fish. She's even been stung by a bee in the goat yard.

She performs on stage as a dancer but gets physically ill as an altar server at Church. She's the only one of my children that likes to go to Adoration with me in the wee hours of the night. She serves others with a smile and this summer she volunteered to help me teach my crafting classes and she has been very helpful. We've had a fast paced year with two graduations, a Confirmation, family crisis, her dad's illness, and college visits. With those ups and downs we have seen Mimi mature and rise to the challenges of growing up. Right now she is reveling in the fact that she'll be the only child at home this fall. As Mimi's grown we've had our share of emotional drama as well as interesting discussions and great fun.