I noticed panty liners began disappearing from the linen closet at a faster rate than expected. I even accused my oldest daughter of using them when she didn’t need protection.
“No I don’t, she said, as we turned our heads in choreographed motion toward Baby Sis, who was four or five years old at the time. Baby Sis already had a reputation for getting into areas such as closets and her sister’s chest of drawers. When we couldn’t find certain items, we often checked in her room and closet.
With matter-of-fact aplomb, Baby Sis admitted to it. “Those are my pads! I wear them like you and Sister do.” So much for discreetness and coming of age. It was when her sister began to use sanitary napkins, and Baby Sis wanted to be part of the girl brigade in our family.
Baby Sis preferred to wear dresses even at home, so each day she wore a dress and her panty liner. At least she wore it for a few hours, then I would find the used liner thrown somewhere inappropriate: on a lamp table, on her bedroom floor, or the kitchen counter. I thought she was cute with her routine and seriousness, but I did take exception when I found the liner on the kitchen counter.
The phase did not last long, and at the end of it, I came around the corner to see her standing in front of the front storm door with her back to me. She was reaching down in her panties for the liner. With one quick movement, she pulled it out into the open and slapped it sticky side to the storm door.
There it hanged for everyone to see. Meanwhile Baby Sis had turned the corner and gone to the basement to watch TV.
I sat on the stair landing and laughed until I could not breathe.
I called her upstairs and confronted her with the liner. “I didn’t want to wear that old thing anymore,” she explained. “It wasn’t comfortable.”
“Go throw it in the trash, then,” I said.
The next day I found another liner on the same storm door. My neighbor, Marilyn, who directed a local preschool program shrieked when I told her the story. “You laughed? I would have screamed.”
How could I? This child displayed an entirely new attitude toward life as she encountered the challenges of each day with smiles, scowls, creative art work, and loads of energy.
Of course there was the day she attempted to shave her legs. My Bible study teacher had just phoned, and I was attached to the cord of the wall phone in the kitchen. Within two or three minutes I heard a loud cry and screech that even my friend could hear over the phone.
“I have to go,” I said. “She’s done something to hurt herself.” I barely replaced the receiver as I ran up the steps to the kids’ bathroom. Baby Sis ran crying to me with blood trickling down both legs.
Taking advantage of my being on the phone, she had sneaked my razor from my bathroom and proceeded to attempt to shave her legs. It was a blessing she did not cut deeper into her flesh. With the same tone of insult she expressed when she got into a cactus plant, she said, “It bit me!”
I did not laugh that time.
Such constant energy frequently got the best of her at dinner time because she refused to take an afternoon nap.
Often she would sit in her chair at the table and whimper with fatigue, especially if she was hungry and dinner was not ready. I customarily prepared a plate for her while I finished the meal. She liked mashed potatoes and green beans and the more she was tired, the more she rubbed the mashed potatoes in her hair.
It may have been the day she shaved that her dad saw the head begin to fall forward on the table. With smoothness and grace like a waltz, he moved her plate with one hand and replaced it with a throw pillow for her head. In slow motion she fell forward with hair sticky from mashed potatoes and slept peacefully on her pillow.
We let her rest there because, as parents, we knew to play the cards as they were dealt to us.
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