Meet Little Mack!

Introducing McKinley Elaine Rebecca Blaine

Born Friday, July 1, 2011, 4:37pm

7lbs 5oz. 20.5 inches

McKinley: My great-grandfather's name, "Payton McKinley Scott", went by "Mack".  Irish for "daughter of the learned ruler."

Elaine: Clint's mother's first name, my mother's middle name, and Clint's sister's middle name.  French form of Helen meaning "light".

Rebecca:  Our sister's first name.  By blood she is Clint's, by heart she is mine.  Hebrew for tied or bound to.

All fitting for this baby, our sweet little McKinley.  Our lives feel so complete now that she is here.  I've known for years she was coming, I'm just glad she and God finally decided it was time.  I am looking so forward to discovering who she is, but not in any hurry for that time to rush and get here.  I am so content to sit and dream with her all snuggled up in my arms.  My favorite things about her?  That she has laughed in her sleep since the day she was born, that she makes a sound like a baby goat when she stretches, that she already smiles back at us and coos, that she has her Nana's and her Daddy's one-sided grin, that she is my baby, and that she brings such a sweet feeling into our hearts and home. We are all definately wallowing in a deep pile of smit.

Startling Thought

My last blog just prompted the most startling thought!  What if McKinley has her Daddy's big ole head with a Honey-sized body?  She'll never be able to walk!  Great....now I'll be biting my fingernails 'til she's born....

Fly Sandwiches

For me one of life's greatest pleasures is knowing exactly who I came from and feeling the connection that binds all of us together.  I love to look in the mirror and see the shape and color of Granny's eyes, Grandad's nose, and most especially PawPaw's dark, wavy hair.  These traits remind me of them every day.  They remind me not only of who I came from, but how I am the link that binds them to the ones who will follow.  I didn't mention MawMaw in there.  Of all four grandparents, she is the one that I look absolutely nothing like.  But genetics are funny in that they don't just show up in our eye color and facial features, but in our personalities as well.  I have always found genetics fascinating.  Like how I'm tempered like PawPaw and Granny in terms of being happy pretty much all the time, but didn't get an ounce of  PawPaw's nature to worry (thank heavens!).  Honey and J got the giant doses of that, poor ole souls.  I'm tempered like all four in the aspect that they all had a great sense of humor and were fun loving.  I failed to get Grandad's temper, and I failed to inherit MawMaw's pouting abilities, but I did inherit the great love of music that Grandad, PawPaw, and MawMaw all shared.  I can still hear Grandad's and PawPaw's voices singing and it always makes me smile.  When I think of MawMaw singing I never fail to remember the first Christmas home from college that Honey, MawMaw, and I were sitting together in church and MawMaw came in a full measure ahead of everyone else in "O Little Town of Bethlehem".  The "Oooooooooooooooh" still rings loud in my ears and still makes me bust out laughing just like it did then.  In fact, I had to get up and leave I was laughing so hard.  Honey was about 2 seconds behind me.  I believe it took about 20 minutes to compose ourselves enough to go back in only to have MawMaw say to the lady next to her (in her most somber voice), "I'm sorry they acted that way."  The lady's response (in her most somber voice) was, "We just raise them the best we can".  Those comments naturally did nothing but get us going again.  One of the best things I got from MawMaw, aside from a definite and pretty serious mischevious streak, are her crazy dream genetics.  She dreams the craziest stuff I've ever heard aside from the crazy stuff I dream.   In fact, a couple of years ago she and I died laughing on the phone as she told me about one dream in particular that I've never forgotten.  She dreamed that Honey and Uncle Bud were little, they were hungry, and she only had one rotten tomato left to make a sandwich out of.  So, she cut off as much of the bad parts as she could to make them a rotten tomato sandwich when someone showed up at the door and she felt that she needed to give them the sandwich instead.  But that left her with nothing to feed her poor little youngins with, so she saw a fly buzzing around, caught it, and made them a fly sandwich to eat.   The best part to any of the descriptions she gives of her dreams is when she finishes the story and ends with, "Now ain't that crazy?"  Ha ha ha. That's exactly why I love them!  They are crazy just like mine!  The other night I dreamed a big ole black bear was coming after me and the kids and I got the kids behind me, picked up a giant rock and waited to see what the bear would do.  It ate some sort of dead animal about ten feet from us and when it finished it turned our direction, stood up on it's hind legs and roared.  I knew that with black bears if there is no way of getting away, then you should get to higher ground, make yourself as big as you can, and make as much noise as possible, so I lifted the giant rock over my head and roared back.  It roared again, so I roared back.  It roared a third time, and in my dream I let out the loudest, deepest, most inhuman roar back and it turned and ran off.  The next morning I wasn't the least bit suprised to learn that I had, alas, roared out loud in my sleep.  Oh the things poor Clint has to put up with!  Fortunately after all these years he's used to it.  I broke him in quick the second night we were married when I dreamed I was fighting somebody and kneed him right in the butt cheek as hard as I could while I was asleep.  I hit him so hard I woke myself up just to find him jumping around the motel room (lit only by the dim light coming through the drapes from the street lamps below) with a cramp in his butt.  Needless to say for some reason he has always slept with his back to me since and I can't for the life of me figure out why.  I guess it's a good thing, otherwise we might not have ever had children.   So far, none of my youngins have exhibited any signs that they might also carry this gene.  Who knows, maybe it's one that skips generations.  I sure hope not.  I'd really hate for them to miss out on the joys of waking up after a full nights sleep of crazy dreams.  I also failed to pass practically any of those good Lail/Scott/Whaley/Sutton genes on to them since in appearances I did nothing but incubate them.  The only evidence that they are mine are in the shape of Erika's eyes, which are shaped like mine and Granny's.  I'm hoping that at least maybe they'll have inherited some of those characteristics passed down to me that don't just show up on the outside.  I guess only time will tell.  I'd hate to be a complete recessive gene.  After all, it would be a terrible shame for them not to inherit any of the good stuff coming from my side of the family, because there is a whole big fat pile of a lot of good.  I've always known I was super blessed to be born to the family I was, and the older I get the more I realize how rare and wonderful of a gift it was.  I'm one of the few people who's very first emotion when thinking about their family as a whole is pure, undiluted happiness and love followed instantaneoulsy by laughter.  Lots and lots of laughter.  Most people are embarrassed by their "weird" family.  Hogwash I say!  Every family is weird.  I'm just grateful I was sent to mine...face-making, prank-pulling, song-singing, laughter-loving, hard working, adventuresome, giant-hearted, bug-eyeing, parable-speaking, sunny-side-of life, loyal, loving lot that they are.

One Last Treasure

It didn't take very long at all after discovering that we were expecting another baby that our thoughts turned to Nana accompanied by the sense of hollowness at not being able to tell her the news, of knowing that she won't be here to hold this little one and cuddle her in her quiet, unassuming, unobtrusive way.  This baby will only know her from the photos and stories that we'll share with her.  We've talked several times about how even though McKinley won't have her Nana here with her in person, she is getting some great one on one time with her right now while she's waiting to make her appearance, and we've laughed about how if Nana has anything to do with it, McKinley will have a few tricks up her sleeves and a mischeivious twinkle in her eye too.  Among those thoughts and others, we both recognized that one of the things she won't have is a blanket made for her by her Nana.  Fast forward to last Monday, the day after Mother's Day.  I opened a box we got in the mail from Rebecca to find this blanket inside with a short note about it being a blanket for a girl grandbaby made by Nana.  It's a good thing the note was so short because I couldn't have read any further anyway.  I stood in the kitchen in shock with big ole fat tears running down my face, grateful for a sister-in-law so selfless to share one last treasure from her mother with us.  The story goes something like this:  Last summer while Rebecca was cleaning out the house she was going through a stack of quilts that Nana had made and came across this baby blanket.  She said she knew it wasn't for her, Jessica said she knew it wasn't for her, and Rebecca said she knew Nana had meant if for somebody and it must be meant for us.  So, she decided to put it in our box of things, but felt like she should take it home with her instead because she didn't know when we would be able to come get it.  None of us had an inkling last summer that a miracle was about to take place, but having been gone already almost two years somehow Nana had known and had made this quilt for our baby girl.  So typical of who she was and how in tune she always seemed to be with her family and things that truly mattered.  Two and half years after she left us, she is still blessing our lives, still letting us know that even though we cannot see her she is still right here with us.  How fortunate I feel to have been blessed with this extraordinary woman as the mother of my husband (whom I can see her reflection in daily), as my mother-in-law, and the grandmother of my children who also remind me of her almost daily in their looks and personalities.   I am so reminded by her of the words to the song "A Mother's Eyes Relfect the Love of Heaven" by Steven Jones:

"A mother's eyes reflect the love of heaven.
A love borne long before this life began.
A love which grows each day, which will not fade away,
A love inspired by Heavenly Father's plan.

A mother's hands reflect a life of service,
A life of sacrifice for those she loves,
And with her giving hands she shapes the soul of man,
Prepares him for eternal life above.

A mother's life reflects itself in our life,
Her ways of living are engrained in ours,
And through the changing years and days of joys and tears,
Her love will lead us on."

Keeping These Things In My Heart

I've got to admit that that little leg looks an awful lot like mine.  As inconceivable (get it, inconceivable) as it sounds, it sure looks like mine.  Maybe because this baby is mine.  I can't even describe the total and utter shock I felt at discovering that once again I was carrying a baby.  Just imagine me standing in our room looking at Clint with eyes the size of saucers exclaiming the first thought that came to my reeling mind, "I'm 35!"   For seven years we had believed that we couldn't have any more children.  I had consigned myself to knowing that I would never again feel the movements marking the growth of life within me again, not with bitterness, but looking forward with faith that God knows all and unspeakably grateful for the children I do have.  How could I find reason to complain when I have already been so blessed?!?  There has always been the feeling of someone missing, so I just assumed that adoption was the answer, and that once again God would bring whatever baby into our lives that belongs to us, just like he did with Jackson.  Thyroid surgery not quite two months past, mid-renovation on the building we bought to open the studio, adoption papers in and literally 2 days away from publishing, learning I was pregnant was literally the LAST thing in the world I expected.  How could I thinking it was no longer possible?  Days of walking around in a complete stupor ensued.  Days that turned to weeks and still I could not fathom the possibility.  12 weeks we hear the heartbeat and I cried at the sound I never expected to hear again. And still the shock remained, the surrealness overwhelming.  But amid the daze of those first few months was an incredible pervading sense of absolute wonder that permeated our home.  Telling the kids was unimaginable, especially when they had all three been begging me for a couple of years to have another one even though I kept telling them I couldn't.  Sometimes kids just know things we don't.  I'll never forget as long as I live sitting around the kitchen table that evening after we told them talking about "If it's a girl, what would we name her?, "If it's a boy, what would we name him?"  Leave it to Kail to come up with the most perfect name ever.  In fact, his exact words as he threw his hands up in the air to stop our conversation were, "Wait! Wait!  I've got it!  If it's a boy we should name him Shipper Glunky Blaine.  It's perfect!"  Is it any wonder that after that moment we called the baby nothing but "Shipper" until the ultrasound revealed that they all three got their wish of having a baby sister?  Remarkably we asked the kids not to tell anyone and they didn't.  Not a soul.  We made it five months before anyone besides family and a few very close friends knew a thing.  Even six months in some cases. Clint would've shouted it from the rooftops from day one, but me, I couldn't say a word.  I had the hardest time finding a way to put into words the reason why I just couldn't share it, but I couldn't.  As odd as it sounds, the joy was just too much.   The wonder so thick it was palpable.  I understood on a level I never comprehended before the words in Luke 2:19 where it talks about how Mary "kept all these things and pondered them in her heart".  When you're living part of a miracle talking about it to any and everyone is just too much.  So for those who didn't know, I didn't share our joy as soon as usual not out of selfishness, or out of fear, but out of deep marvel and respect for another literal miracle in my life.  I was simply just keeping all these things and pondering them in my heart. 

(Me and McKinley at six months)

The Pinball

Some of my very best memories throughout my life are those where MawMaw has come for a visit.  I remember after we moved to Arkansas J and I could hardly bear the anticipation of waiting for her and PawPaw to arrive when we knew they were on their way.  I remember one year not long after we moved there she was playing "Come Closer" with us in the back yard and she fell.  It made Honey mad, and it made me and MawMaw die laughing.  I believe that incident was a couple of years after the visit when we went shopping in Fort Smith, she stepped off the curb, and the next thing we know she was laying on the ground.  She didn't even fall, she just sort of rolled gracefully down.  I was six at the time.  No matter how much Honey threatened me, I COULD NOT stop laughing.  MawMaw was laughing too.  She seriously looked exactly like a roly poly wollering around on the ground in my six-year-old eyes.  I nearly stopped breathing I was laughing so hard.  I don't know if it was her laughter or her legs that wouldn't let her get up from there, maybe a combination of both, but somehow I know she eventually did or she'd still be layin' there to this day I guess as much help as I was.  Let me reiterate...she was laughing too.  I remember that I wouldn't let Honey wash my sheets for at least a week after they left because they smelled like her. 

In September 2007, I got to go on a grand adventure with her in Colorado and New Mexico for Uncle Bud's wedding.  Driving Ms. Lail around in the Jeep Liberty I had rented on those New Mexico dirt back roads was nothing short of awesome.  There had been a rare rain storm the day before the wedding, so there were some really nice mud puddles I made sure to hit going about 30 just to hear her holler when the water would go up over the vehicle.  There just so happens to be a tie between the best moment of that trip though, both involving her and her control-top pantyhose. We pulled, and we pulled, and we pulled trying to get them things on.  However it wasn't until AFTER she got sick from dehydration (Ms. Lail is notoriously stubborn and REFUSED to drink water) and we got her back to the room that we discovered that she had a girdle on too.  (Apparently at 81 years old she had decided unbeknownst to us that she needed to not only wear support hose, but a girdle as well).  We pulled, and we pulled, and we pulled gettin' them suckers off.  At one point I had one leg of the hose stretched pert near all the way across the room.  I think any human being that had squeezed themselves into a girdle AND a pair of control-top panty hose on a typical hot-in-the-desert-day would be woozy.  Imagine the consternation of feeing terrible for her because she was so sick, and recognizing the hilarity of the circumstances surrounding the situation all at the same time.  That's one of those memories that is forever burned into my brain.

At 83 years and 11 months, I am so happy that she is still wants to, and is still able to come spend time with me.  So, last week I took off to North Carolina to get her and bring her back home with me for a two week visit.

                                                (Me and MawMaw 3/8/2011)

Now when it comes to MawMaw, we have discovered a few tricks to keeping her happy.  It is widely known that MawMaw is almost always affable as long as you stick to these "tricks".   First, is the "feed and water" method.   You do not EVER let her get hungry.  She gets ill as a hornet if she is hungry, and if you let her go too long without taking care of her dietary needs you WILL get stung.  Chinese food will get you bonus points.  Second, as long as you take her on some kind of little "field trip" almost every day she will be as content as can be.  This can be as simple as a trip to Dollar General, Dollar Tree, etc.  It is this second trick, combined with the third (do not get between her and candy if you don't want to get run over) that has earned her her latest name, "The Pinball".  This trip I have discovered what I should have seen for years, but never seemed to be enlightened enough to grasp.  I don't know, maybe it's the hormones from carrying this baby that have helped me gain it, but I have come to the conclusion that alas, MawMaw is a pinball.  She moves as slow as molasses (which at practically 84 she has earned the right to do), but take her to a store and she can move as quick as lightnin'!  It's just like drawing back the spring on a pinball machine...getting her to the store is the draw back, walking through the front door is letting the spring go.  I say pinball, because when Ms. Lail shops there is no rhyme or reason to her scurrying.  She goes from the back left of the store to the front right, from the front right to the middle, from the middle back to the back left, to the front, to the back right, to the middle, to the front left.  And you know how on a pinball machine up at the top there are usually two or three bumpers that if your pinball gets between those it bounces back and forth really really fast and gets all kinds of points, well that's the candy and cookie isle in the store.  DO NOT get in her way or you will be peeling yourself off the floor.  Ding! Da-da-ding! D-d-d-d-d-d-Ding!  Da-Ding! Da-Ding!  Mr. Goodbar!  SCORE!

(MawMaw checkin' out the shams to the new bedspread she bought...she'll chatter all the way home now.  I love it!)

Now, just for clarification, I am in no way making fun of or picking on my MawMaw.  I couldn't ask for a better one, and can't imagine why in the world I would want to!  I have always appreciated her sense of humor and how fun she can be, and treasure the adventures I have had with her.  All these years I have looked forward to our visits together, knowing that we will always find something to die laughing about.  And first thing tomorrow morning I expect to be woken by the sound of her little scuffles on her way to make her coffee, I expect to find her sneaking cookies for breakfast, and I expect to watch her doze most of the afternoon in the chair next to me.  Maybe I'll be fortunate enough to get some of her good tales about working at the "asylum", or tying PawPaw's big toe to the bed post while he was asleep and laughing about him falling on the floor when he tried to get up, or about the time she put a baby mouse down her older sister's dress, etc.  Needless to say, she has always been a mischevious one, and that's one of the things I love the most about her.  My little Pinball MawMaw.  Spit-doing!  Watch her go!

(Contents from her cart today.... 1 box of moon pies, 1 pack of mini hershey chocolate bars, oreos, apple fritter bread, dentyne fire, and a prescription of Actose for her blood sugar....Ha ha ha ha)