The Years Have Flown by soooo Fast!!!!!

18 years ago... I had given up! I was a week overdue, and I was thinking I was going to be pregnant forever, the first woman in History!

Little did I know that in a mere matter of a few hours I would be a mother! 9 Months of Pregnancy, did not prepare me to ‘be’ a mother! It was all such a shock and a surprise! I couldn’t believe it!

The other part was that at an ultrasound a few weeks earlier, my Dr. had said, “Don’t go out and buy clothes, – which I did... but, I think it’s a boy.” Well, not that I was disappointed in any way, I have LOVED having my girls, but for a few days I was still just in shock and awe!!! I was a Mother! I had a baby... and it was a GIRL!!!

Long many years ago, I had started a little book of names that I liked. I decided I wanted to name my first daughter after my mother. My mother’s name was Loraine Faith Sherwood Wright. I was not into Faith, Hope, and Charity as names at that time of my life. I decided I wanted to use Loraine, however I thought it was kind of a BIG name (Old Fashioned) for a little baby girl, so I decided I would use it as a middle name. I then set about trying it with different names and figured out I really liked how Rebekah Loraine flowed together. And because I had always felt like I had a boring name, I wanted a little different spelling, so I went with the one in the bible, with the ‘kah’ at the end instead of the ‘cca’ spelling.

When Bill and I were engaged, we talked about names. He wanted to name a boy William Joseph after his grandfather, and that was fine with me, and I told him I wanted to name a girl Rebekah Loraine. By this time I had already lost her a little bit over two years before, and so it was now even more important for me to honor her by naming my first daughter after her. I was however an only girl, with 3 older and 1 younger brother, so I didn’t know if that would ever come to be.

When I had my sweet baby girl, I just felt a real closeness to my mother and I truly felt that my mother had sent her to me... I could just imagine my mother standing there holding Rebekah’s hand and leading her along and sending her specifically to ME!

I missed my mom and have wished so many times that she could have been there with me as I grew into a woman, and got married in the Temple, and then when I had the blessing to become a mother! I have worried and wondered over the years, as we have not always had the best relationships, if I would be close to my children, to my daughters when they are grown and have families of their own.

I have enjoyed watching Rebekah grow and mature into a wonderful young woman, and now here she is turning 18, and she is about to go out on her own, and I so hope that she has some fond memories of home when she leaves us. I hope and pray that she will make good choices and grow even stronger in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I hope and pray that she will enjoy her life, and learn and grow, and have fun at college, and that she will be able to stand strong, and let her light shine, and be a beacon for others who are searching to see and to follow.

I have so appreciated all the help that she has been to me and at home and with the family, over the past few months in particular.

Not having had an Adult Relationship with my own mother, I wonder what it will be like to have adult children. Part of me is having a difficult time accepting that I will have a child who is 18 years old now! That means I’m really old... ;-) On the other hand I really do hope to have many fun years ahead of us. I love the idea of taking ‘girls’ trips every so often. Not that I want to leave Liam out at all, I just want to be able to enjoy my daughters, and to have fun watching them all grow over the coming years.

Back to Rebekah...

She was born in Germany, while her daddy was off to ‘war’ in Kuwait back in 1991. She was not an easy baby, and there were many times I felt very alone! There were times that the phone would ring, and I could hardly speak when I answered and I would realize I hadn’t spoken a word in days. I feel horrible that I could go for several days at a time and not talk to anyone, including and especially my sweet little baby! They say that children learn their language and verbal skills early on, by people talking, singing, and reading to them as baby's. Luckily I don’t have to feel too terrible, as it is pretty obvious, I certainly did not stifle Rebekah’s verbal skills!!!

She has always LOVED her daddy! When he first met her she was already 3 months old! Perhaps that worked out nicely as she could smile and coo at him by then, and she was I’m certain, thrilled that there was someone else who would spend lots of time and effort devoted to her and to meeting her needs. Of course the needs he’d respond to were different a lot of times than what she needed from me. (We read an article once many years ago, about how dad’s teach their children to look outside themselves and their immediate circle for things. Mom’s teach them closeness, with all the loving and cuddling we do, etc, but dad’s teach them to be strong and independent, with all the rough housing and the throwing them up in the air, etc...)

When we were living in Germany we only got ONE (1) channel of AFN (Armed Forces Network)t.v. I remember you could turn on the tv on a Saturday, and watch World Wrestling Federation Competitions. Now I would try to just avoid them, but when there was only one channel to choose from... Bill would then commence playing WWF with our daughter! He’d hold her under her armpits, and hold her standing up on the couch, with the narration (dad) of the wrestling match... “And Rebekah climbs up the ropes and Jumps!!!” Onto what ever weird name dad picked... Another fun game he would play with the children would make me think... I’ve often wondered how Circus acts get started. Then I got married and had kids??? Now I know. He would lay on his back on the floor, and hold Rebekah up and out and have her ‘wrestle” him to the ground! And heaven forbid he even sat on the floor in those days... the child would come up and push him down and say pick me up daddy. They would then sit on his feet and he’d lift them up high into the air, then he would take their feet into his hands and hold them tight and then have them stand up while he would straighten his arms out as well as his legs, to get them really high in the air! He has gone on to include tossing them (Liam, I don’t know if he did this part with the other kids or not. I’m old and so are they and I don’t remember!) into the air and then catching them on their way back down! Yes, welcome to my circus! Way back all those years ago, I used to be worried about the baby, and would he catch the baby? Etc, etc... but he always did, and now... I don’t usually think about it, unless I can see a piece of furniture too close by, in case of a fall (which none of them have ever done in all the years!), but otherwise I don’t hardly notice and I certainly don’t freak out over it! We laugh, we take pic’s and the child giggling in delight, says, “again, again!”

I will post more, but for now...

**************HAPPY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*********************