I’ve largely been deprived of seeing many of my childhood photos for most of my life. I had only ever saw one of me as a baby. Just one. I often wondered how the youngest of twelve kids could have only one baby picture out there. Could it be that they all had been lying to me all these years?
“Oh, you were sooo cute.”
“We just loved you to pieces.”
Well if all that were true, why weren’t you snapping pics of me every chance you got? Or was it more likely that the story my fourth brother always told me was true? I was adopted. And they didn’t get me until I was three. Which would explain why most of the pictures I have seen are of me from the age of three and up. Was that one baby picture I had been looking at all these years not me after all? The lies!
Well, I made sure to put all the worries to smash over the July 4th weekend. One of my sisters had been working on a scrapbook for the family and she brought it down to the country with her. She had assured me she had some much earlier photos of me.
Imagine my excitement when she pulled out that scrapbook! And now imagine how a little girl feels when she was promised a Easy Bake Oven for Christmas, only to open the box and find a bunch of pots and pans but no oven. Yeah, there was not one baby picture of me in that scrapbook. Damn.
Luckily, my superwoman mom came through. She just happened to have a huge storage bin full of pictures sitting in the closet. She was sure there were plenty of pictures in there of me. What? Where did this thing come from? Why had I not seen this before? I attacked that bin like a woman having her last gluttonous meal before going on The Biggest Loser.
I scored big time. Suddenly, the pictures started flowing. So I was a baby! I didn’t come out of my mother’s womb like some freak of nature at the ripe old age of three after all! Or more importantly, I wasn’t adopted. There I was sitting in sister six’s lap at what could have been no more than eight months old. What beautiful eyes! Clearly I missed my calling as a model. I should have been in commercials. I could have been a child star. Hopefully not one of the many who succumbed to drugs and alcohol, but a child star nonetheless. I’ll have to make a mental note to discuss this with mom later.
In most of the pictures, I was sitting on the lap of one of my siblings. I was told I was a pretty popular baby. They fought over me constantly. That is until I started talking. Then I became a tattletale and they couldn’t stand me anymore. I guess I’m still tattling with this blog. Some habits never die. Whatevs. What do you expect? I have SO much subject matter.
To say that I was relieved to see these pics is a gross understatement. It was like my past suddenly started opening up for me. I am so not one of those people who remembers the first teddy bear they got when they were two. Or the day they came home from the neonatal unit at the hospital. I’m a visual person. When I see something, it strikes a memory for me. I needed these pictures to prove I really did have a normal childhood. I actually had toys and I enjoyed playing with them. There really was a time when I couldn’t walk and people had to carry me around.
Sometimes I feel like such an old soul. Always solving everyone else’s problems. Sometimes I just want to be the freakin’ baby for once! And over the course of a couple of hours, I was taken back to the brief moment when I was truly and honestly the baby of the family.
On a side note, I don’t know why I ever believed that adoption story. Why would anyone in their right mind adopt a kid when they already had eleven of their own? I doubt any of the others made a really good case for adding just one more. I’m sure it wasn’t until I came along that it actually became clear that things really needed to be evened out. I mean, come on. Look at those eyes!
