Homebody: Middle Child

My eight-year-old has chosen the codename 'Skippy' for my blog. He loves the Skippyjon Jones books by Judy Schachner about a Siamese cat that thinks he's a chihuahua. He also has an infatuation with chihuahuas because of this. He wants to be one for Halloween, and has watched the trailer for the new movie Beverly Hills Chihuahua at least 562 times.

I don't understand this middle child phenomenon. I did not purposely decide "Skippy is in the middle. I think I'll ignore him", but somehow he often seems to get the short end of the stick. The year he turned five, we moved the week of his birthday, so we skipped it. Actually, we postponed it a week, but didn't tell him. He knew it was coming up and kept asking "when's my birthday?" and we'd say "soon, Honey, soon". I think this happened more than once, now that I think of it. We move a lot.

He's also had fewer real birthday parties than the other two. I mean, we always celebrate his birthday, but as far as having friends over and decorations and all that. Probably because we always seem to move right around his birthday. By far the most glaring omission, and the one Skippy keeps reminding me of, is his lack of baby book. I did first-year scrapbooks for the other two, and I did start one for Skippy but lost some photos and got behind and never did get back on track. Firstborn actually has two scrapbooks (remember alphabet books?), and when Skippy wants to look at photos, he gets them all out and we all sit around going "awww! Look at Firstborn!" and "Pinkerbelle was such a cute baby! Wait, is that Skippy's elbow?".

So I'm going to make this post a little mini album for Skippy, who really is the sweetest, most loving child. He was always cuddly and as a baby would burrow his head into your neck. Even now, he likes me to play with his hair or ears or whatever, and if I stop he grabs my hand and puts it back. He likes my 'mommy smell' and will sometimes just come up and sniff me, or my pillow (btw, I do not wear perfume and I do bathe; he just has a sensitive nose). He gets along well with both his siblings, he's a great reader, and writes funny stories. I love this kid!