April 19, 2007 5:30 PM
Happy Birthday, dear Maddy!
Fourteen years ago I gave birth for the last time - at least I think so :)
Maddy was born 54 weeks after her brother Jonny - my #9. When she was three weeks old, Jonny was hospitalized for three weeks in ICU with a bout of pneumonia that almost took his life. When she was ten weeks old, he went in for another three weeks for a major emergency surgery.
My sweet little baby was blessed to have big sister Jasmine there to hold and love her when I couldn't be there. (Jasmine, if you are reading this, please know how grateful all of the family is for the help you gave us then!)
Despite the crazy start to her life - and the subsequent adoptions of three more babies with Down syndrome, Maddy proved to be the Happiest Camper of Them All. Always a smile and a joyful, positive attitude that continues to bless her family to this day, When she was seven years old, I published an article about her - and about having a child at 45 - called Mommy-Come-Lately:
Mommy, how old are you?" my youngest daughter Madeleine asks me every month or so. I always get the feeling she's worried - kind of like me rummaging through the fridge and finding a package of pork chops dated a few days ago.And Madeleine worried is truly something to give one pause. Because Madeleine is the most consistently cheerful, upbeat, and enthusiastic person I've ever met.
"I'm fifty-two sweetheart," I reply casually, as though it's just the most normal thing for a woman who a century ago might have been already a memory to even dream of making memories with her children for many years to come.
It's not that I got a late start. My first daughters, Samantha Sunshine and Jasmine Moondance, were born in 1969 and 1975 respectively - like bookends to my intensely political antiwar and radical feminist years in Washington, D.C. Shortly before Jasmine came along I had moved to San Francisco for a little personal R&R, which rather quickly slid into serious social decline.
By the time I met and married Tripp in 1983 and he shouldered responsibility for my daughters, I was ready for a normal family - though our family would prove to be not very normal after all.
Did I mention I was pregnant? Which was rather strange because complications from my worst excesses had led doctors to declare me sterile. And when despite our best efforts at control Tripp and I kept producing children, we began to feel this must be our calling. The truth is, that we found we were enjoying it. Maybe it was because we had both come from unhappy backgrounds. Creating a happy home with lots of children was like healing balm.
It was also an intensely personal expression of the same yearning to transform society that had led to my education as a Montessori teacher as well as my involvement in leftist politics. Oh, the irony! This former ZPGer (Zero Population Growth) now follows a strategy - albeit long-term - of helping to win the culture wars for the other side one child at a time. As megaparents, Tripp and I can flex a lot of political muscle - giving not two or three, but twelve children a solid grounding in the truths we hold self-evident. Leaving this kind of legacy gives us great hope for the future.
Then there is the now. Bearing children over a couple decades has led to some hilarious situations - like being pregnant at the same time as my daughter and swapping maternity clothes. Sober ones too - like breaking the news to her that her newborn brother Jonny had Down syndrome as she was expecting her own first son.
Madeleine was Number Nine, born a year after Jonny. She is what we call "normal," if you consider a ten-year-old with a singing voice like Ethel Merman to be normal. We call her "the voice heard 'round the world."
I guess sometimes people think I'm her grandmother, but these days it's hard to tell, what with so many graying new moms who let their biological clocks keep ticking until seconds before the final alarm. They're now sitting at back-to-school night in those teensy-tiny chairs surrounded by parents young enough to be their children too.
Last summer, while on vacation at a family camp, Madeleine asked me why I was older than the other mommies. What made it worse was that I actually was feeling old - plus a little tired and cranky about schlepping all those kids (including our three adopted sons with Down syndrome, now 5, 4, and 1 - but that's another story) up and down the hills for meals and crafts and swimming. I was muttering things like, "I know you had a plan, God, but what could you have been thinking?" Madeleine's words made me wish for a moment I could be like all the other mothers - young and pretty and full of energy.
Then I remembered that once I had been a young and pretty and energetic mother. And I remembered how back then it was always about me. Now I've learned it's not about me at all - and that's the difference between being a mother of young children in your twenties and in your fifties - especially if you haven't had a break for 34 years.
Now there's another contingent of mommy-come-latelies - not because they were megamoms or late bloomers, but because when their own children had children and blew it, these good women stepped into the breech. I hope they too find hope, healing, and rejuvenation - the unexpected benefits package that comes from spending time with kids.
I hope they have someone like Madeleine, who interrupts my writing to bring me pictures of "You, Mommy, when you were a little girl!"
There I am, smiling wide, cruising up a hill on skateboard. Actually, Madeleine draws everyone on skateboards. Her pictures never have a normal flat horizon, but one which rises determinedly up the page. In the upper right hand corner radiates the sun. With a joyful smile, her subject faces the viewer, arms outspread - skateboarding up the hill toward the light.
I needed this person in my life, with her positive outlook and joyful vision. Obviously, Madeleine - with eight older siblings and two coming up behind - doesn't see life as a cakewalk. After all, she draws us going uphill, not down. But her art seems to say there's a lot to be thrilled about as long as our wheels continue to spin.
I guess that's the upside of being an older mother. I'm just becoming aware of how much there still is to learn. Just beginning to see how much some things I hadn't noticed matter - things like skateboards and the angle of the horizon. It gives me an inkling what God may have been thinking after all - giving someone like Madeleine to someone like me, just at the perfect time!
May your mother and father be glad;
May she who gave you birth rejoice! (Proverbs 23:25)
From the earliest days, Maddy loved to sing and entertain. She had an amazingly in tune and powerful voice, for which we dubbed her The Voice Heard Round the World. We didn't realize until years later that her birthday was also the anniversary of the Battle of Lexington Green, which marked the beginning of the American Revolution with The Shot Heard Round the World.
Until she entered her teenage years, she greeted every visitor to our house with an offer to sing - and visitors who politely acquiesced were always pleasantly surprised at what they heard. Nowadays she waits a half hour or so before asking :)
Maddy's Myers-Brigg test results place her as an Entertainer.
ESFPs radiate attractive warmth and optimism. Smooth, witty, charming, clever, voluble, and open to the environment - who represent about 13 percent of the population.They are great fun to be with and are the most generous of all the types. Performer would be the word which best describes an ESFP.
Maddy has starred in over 20 musicals - including the title role in Annie, Dorothy in Wizard of Oz, Little Red Riding Hood in Into the Woods, and - her favorite - Eponine in Les Miserables. Here she is in her very first role - Gretl in Sound of Music (with sister Sophia as Marta):
Maddy is still the full-of-smiles, making-everyone-happy, loving-life person she was from the beginning. Her favorite star is Doris Day – fitting because she comes across that way herself.
I love her dearly and always will.
Thanks, Maddy, for proving to me that it’s never too late to have another child!
Comments
Oh, Happy Birthday sweet, sweet Maddy!! May God bless you today and always. What a blessing you are.
Posted by: Greta | April 19, 2007 6:33 PM
It's amazing how much your kids look like you! Beautiful, the lot of them!
Happy Birthday Maddy! :)
Posted by: Michelle | April 19, 2007 7:57 PM
A very happy birthday to Maddy and your entire family!!
Posted by: Drewe Llyn Jeffcoat | April 19, 2007 8:11 PM
Barbara,
You may just be being used by God to speak to me. My husband and I occassionally mention having just one more. I just turned 40 this year. I have already had (and lost) one daughter with a chromosomal disorder, T18. I am not sure if God wants us to be content with the 2 we have. They are total joys.
Your description of sweet Maddy makes me think perhaps there's one more baby in our future?
Posted by: Polly | April 19, 2007 11:46 PM
Happy birthday Maddy! My daughter born ten years after my last boy before her is named Madeline and called Maddie. She is five now and the sweetest most happy child I have ever known. She makes my days bright and gay (as my Grams would say when I was a girl). She draws me sweet sunshine pictures always with animals in them smiling. She sings and hugs and giggles much more than any of my other children. She also asks questions sometimes that knock me back and make me think. I love her and she makes me a better me all the time. Again Happy Birthday Maddy and may God Bless you this coming year.
Posted by: momoffour | April 20, 2007 12:00 AM
happy birthday to your sweet baby girl!
you both are so blessed to share this life here together.
God bless Maddie!
laura
Posted by: laura | April 20, 2007 12:25 PM
On Easter weekend, I flew to Alexandria to visit my best friend. We went to church in Baltimore then followed my husband's grandmother on a scenic drive to my aunt and uncle-in-law's home for Easter dinner. I didn't realize we had ended up in Loudon until I saw a bunch of Loudon school stuff on the fridge. I asked my cousin-in-law Meredith (a high schooler) if she knew Maddy or Sophia Curtis. Her face lit up and she said that yes, Maddy had just played Becky Thatcher and Sophia went to her school. From the way she talked about them, I could tell your girls have made quite a positive impression on her!
She asked how I knew them. I replied that I didn't know them, I, well, er, I...sort of...knew their mom. Aunt Gwen said, "Oh, yes, the one with 12 kids! How do you know her?"
"Oh, well, I...um...I read her blog."
They don't strike me as the most tech-savvy people, and I don't think they quite knew how to take that!
Posted by: Becky Miller | April 20, 2007 4:47 PM
Happy Birthday Maddy!!
~Kristy in England
Posted by: kristy | April 21, 2007 4:58 AM
Thanks to all of you for your comments - Maddy was blessed and so was I.
Polly - let me know what happens :)
Becky - that is really something! You should have picked up the phone and called me - I would have been right over! Please, anyone who travels to this area and reads here - please call me so we can meet.
Also check out my schedule for future events - I will be Augusta Maine September 8. I love meeting people in person after meeting them in cybersapce. Right, Janet? Elisabeth? Suzanne?
Posted by: barbara | April 21, 2007 6:50 AM
My Dear Maddy,
How I miss your beautiful smile and your warm hugs as I entered your big house in Petaluma, Calif. I miss hearing your sweet singing voice for all of us to hear. You are a breath of fresh air. May the Lord continue to bless you with the voice of an Angel!!!
Happy Birthday sweet Maddy
Gloria & Gloria Jr.
Posted by: Gloria | April 23, 2007 11:14 AM
