Be careful what you wish for she said…part 1

The story goes like this, apparently my dad came home from work one night and saw something he had never seen before and hasn’t seen but maybe one time since.  My mother was crying.  She’s one of those women who is just, like, beyond strong.  Like, it must be something in being the oldest of nine children and then raising three boys all before 30.  It will just make a woman tough.  I think she was always too busy keeping kids fed, out of trouble and in diapers to worry about tears and the like.  So, my dad, he knows this, I mean, he grew up across the street from her, he’s known her his whole life.  He knew she was a tough cookie and so he knew that if he walked in on her sitting on the edge of the bed weeping then something just wasn’t right.  He gingerly approached her and asked what it was and I guess she looked up at him big blue eyes rimmed in tears and said “I want a girl!”

I don’t know how long it took to get me after that night but in January of 1974 the angels sang, the planets alligned and a disturbance was felt in the force.  I showed up to wreak havoc.  Simple as that.  I don’t think my mom had any idea what she was asking for frankly.  I wasn’t just the baby of the family.  I wasn’t just the only girl.  I was here to be the girliest of girls in a 10 block radius of Oak Hill Park.  I was the baby girl who had to have things be just so.  And by just so I mean like totally friggin perfect.  If my cake fell apart I wouldn’t eat it and would lose it.  Like if one crumb fell of, done.  Tears.  If we had pizza I had to have just so many pieces of whole pepperoni on the slice. If not?  Done.  Tears.  If I spilled my orange juice in the morning, which was a daily ritual of mine, tears.  If my favorite vegetable, peas, were not in a perfect pile with one on top, tears.  If I had to eat something that I didn’t like.  Tears.  Most food is something I didn’t like and would bring me to tears and I had good reason for all of it.  Cooked carrots gave me a headache.  Eggs made my eyes hurt.  Stringy onions made me gag.  Mushrooms made me sweat.  Meat was too chewy.  Salad dressing was gross.  I did like two things for sure.  I liked pink and I liked Spaghettios.   

On my fourth birthday I tried to send my entire family off the deep end by demanding a totally pink birthday.  I wanted pink food aka Spaghettios with pink cake and pink frosting.  Well, my mom had the rule that when it’s your birthday, you get what you want for dinner so that’s what we got.  I think my dad’s forehead almost split open when he had driven through 2 hours of snow for his baby girl’s birthday dinner, totally famished to walk into the kitchen and be served nothing but Sphaghettios and pink cake with pink frosting.  

Being so ultra femme also meant that I was the girl who cried at the drop of a hat, and just to prove the point my brothers would often drop a hat at the dinner table just to see me burst into tears.  I was also the girl who would crack up into hysterical fits of laughter if prompted sometimes by no more than the word “the.”  I was also the girl who as soon as I got into 1st grade and was required to wear the school uniform was forced to wear shorts under her plaid skirt because she did cartwheels the entire way home with nary a care in the world who was catching an early moon.  My poor brother Eric had a really good reputation in his Junior High at that point as being cool, and here comes his freaky kid sister cartwheeling down 7th street.   He shook his head a lot.  

I desperately wanted to be super tough like my brothers and have a pretty strong reputation at this point in my life as being so, but at the beginning, middle and end of the day I was and am a total girl.  I wanted everything pink and with my name on it.  My mom made me a pink bedspread with my name on it, she painted my bedroom walls pink.  She stiched my name, in pink, on my jeans, on my snow suit, anywhere I asked for it.  She had one of those heart pins w/ the rainbows specially made with my name as in Oswego, NY I was the only Alexis.  Shit, I was the only Alexis in most of the Central Leatherstocking Region.  This of course has changed dramatically especially since my mother being in Labor and Delivery and Oswego being a small town, lots of ladies took it as a sign that they should name their child Alexis because my mom delivered their baby.  

Ok, so back to me being the only girl in a house of brothers and their friends.  This was pretty awesome considering I lived in a hallway until 6th grade.  My parents had the front room, Eric and Mark shared a room with bunk beds in the back, Ed had the middle room to his own room and they converted this hallway into a bedroom for me.  So not only were my brothers parading through my room whenever they wanted and there was no such thing as privacy for me, but all of their friends would stroll through in their tighty whities on their way to the bathroom which was also next to my hallway.  My parents still don’t understand why I didn’t sleep for the first 10 years of my life.  Who could get any shuteye with all that racket?