September Writing Challenge - Prompt #25:
Unexpected
Today is Daisy’s 12th birthday. I can’t believe she’s that old.
We didn’t find out what we were having when I was pregnant with Daisy. I took a gender-neutral outfit to the hospital. We kind of thought we were having a boy. I went through a few different nurses before I delivered, and the final nurse was adamant, by the baby's heart rate and behavior during labor, that I was going to have a boy.
When she was born, Scotty calmly said, “It’s a girl, Britt!” I still remember his exact tone of voice.
What a beautiful, unexpected surprise!
We ended up not finalizing her name until the last morning in the hospital. I was leaning toward Daisy Cecelia, but the last night in the hospital, I had a dream that I kept calling her Daisy Cleora, and I woke up knowing that's what it was supposed to be. Cleora was the middle name I wanted to give her (after Scotty's grandma who passed away from leukemia), but Scotty's cousin had used the name, and I didn't want to infringe on her name or be a copy cat. I never knew Cleora, but what I know of Cleora, if she had any pull, she was rooting from beyond the veil for this girl to be named after her. So Cleora it is! (and I talked to Scotty's cousin about it, and she was fine with it).
During the first few weeks of her life, I would look at her and just beam. I remember holding her when she was a few days old and whispering, "Thank you for coming to our family." I was smitten! I didn't expect, that by the time she could walk, she and I would butt heads like angry mountain goats for the rest of time. Sure, someday. But not so early on and so consistently.
Butting heads aside, I sure love her. She's navigating all the wilderness of pre-teen girl life, and sometimes it's hard for me to step back and let her be. The funny thing is that everything she does that I struggle with is stuff that I did at that age. She's just like twelve-year-old me.
One way that Daisy is a little different than I was at her age is that she has become very nurturing. There are times when Eva is completely out of control, and Daisy is the one who gets her calmed down. Daisy hasn't always been this way. In fact, as a young child, she had very little interest in dolls or babies. She was never one to want to hold and cradle a newborn, but now she has developed this wonderful ability to work with young children.
Daisy is really funny and always gets her friends laughing. She enjoys doing arts and crafts. She loves music and knows every song. I'm always asking her, "How do you even know this song?" She is stubborn and a little clumsy. She puts together the worst outfits. She has a pleasant singing voice that I hope she'll be confident enough to develop over the next few years. She has amazing hair that she might appreciate someday. She's a good student, and I always hear great things about her from her teachers. I'm so grateful for this oldest daughter of mine - my unexpected Daisy Cleora.
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