{"id":510,"date":"2017-03-02T11:09:32","date_gmt":"2017-03-02T16:09:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/?p=510"},"modified":"2017-03-04T11:26:14","modified_gmt":"2017-03-04T16:26:14","slug":"the-worlds-most-beautiful-baby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/?p=510","title":{"rendered":"THE WORLD\u2019S MOST BEAUTIFUL BABY"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\"IMG_0797\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Mike with his dog Brownie.<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n

\"IMG_0795\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Mike playing in the dirt.<\/h2>\n

My latest book, HALLEY, awarded 2015 Jefferson Cup Honor for Historical Fiction, awarded the Moonbeam Silver Medal for Young Adult Fiction,\u00a0 and awarded the 2016 Frank Yerby Award for Fiction.\u00a0 Available at: NewSouth Books:\u00a0www.newsouthbooks.com\/halley and Amazon<\/strong>.<\/h2>\n

I didn\u2019t find out what caused babies until the summer of my fourteenth year.\u00a0 I happened up on a Reader\u2019s Digest article at my Aunt Hilde\u2019s house: \u201cHow To Tell Your Child The Facts of Life.\u201d\u00a0 It was a revelation that explained a lot of mysteries.\u00a0 So when my mother got pregnant for the fifth and last time, I knew how, but I sure didn\u2019t know why<\/span>.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

There were plenty of reasons for why not<\/span>.\u00a0 We were so poor that Mama and I only had one pair of shoes between us.\u00a0 Only one of us at a time could leave the house.\u00a0 Mama had only recently left the sanitarium where she had been committed because a \u201cnervous breakdown\u201d following my father\u2019s alcohol-related near death experience.\u00a0 We barely had anything in the way of furniture or clothing, because our previous rental house had burned to the ground, taking everything we owned except for the clothes on our backs and Daddy\u2019s clunker car.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

After reading the Digest article, I was able to figure out that Daddy wanted another baby (He enjoyed babies until they were old enough to become work).\u00a0 Every time we had a visitor, he was bound to say, \u201cI know what would take care of all the old lady\u2019s problems\u2014she needs another little\u2019un.\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n

About like she needs a hole in the head, I would think, and Mama seemed to agree.\u00a0 She would usually mutter in a sarcastic tone, \u201cYeah, that\u2019s all I\u2019d need all right.\u201d\u00a0 So I thought Mama and I were of a like mind, at least on this subject.\u00a0 Then one bitterly cold day she and I were doing the weekly laundry by hand when she broke the news.\u00a0 We had hand-scrubbed and rinsed and were now hanging laundry on the clothesline.\u00a0 The clothes were freezing almost as fast as we could secure them with clothes pins.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d Mama said, her eyes on the ground, \u201cI\u2019m going to have a baby.\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n

I was stunned, so my words tumbled out uncensored.\u00a0 \u201cMy God, Mama.\u00a0 You and Daddy can\u2019t provide for the four you already have!\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Mama never welcomed criticism\u2014especially when it was loaded with truth.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s none of your business if we have twelve,\u201d she said.\u00a0 Since I barely had a change of clothing and the elastic in all my drawers was so shot that they only stayed on thanks to safety pins taking up the slack, I felt it was my business, but I was smart enough to leave this unsaid.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

I was angry and embarrassed at my parents\u2014deliberately adding to an already too large family.\u00a0 But I knew enough to nurse my anger in silence.\u00a0 After a while, Mama figured out a way to reconcile me.\u00a0 She told me that my sister and I could name the baby.\u00a0 In spite of myself, I was drawn in.\u00a0 Jean and I decided on \u201cElizabeth\u201d for a girl and \u201cMichael\u201d for a boy.\u00a0 Then, a couple of weeks short of the due date, Mama had a brainstorm.\u00a0 \u201cGeorge would love to have one young\u2019un named after him. \u2018George Michael\u2019 is what we\u2019ll name a boy.\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\u201cMama,\u201d I wailed, \u201cyou promised we could could call him Michael.\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\u201cYou can,\u201d she said.\u00a0 \u201cThe first name\u2019ll just be on his birth certificate.\u201c<\/strong><\/h3>\n

I knew it couldn\u2019t be that simple.\u00a0 \u201cDaddy will want to call him George.\u00a0 We\u2019ve already got three Georges in the family.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want \u2018Little George\u2019 added to the crowd.\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\u201cYour daddy won\u2019t care what the baby\u2019s called,\u201d Mama argued.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

But, of course, he did.\u00a0 \u201cThis is Little George\u201d he would announce to everyone who came to see the baby.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\u201cMichael,\u201d I would hiss.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re calling him Michael.\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n

That was the only battle with Daddy I ever won.\u00a0 After about three years he quit calling his youngest \u201cLittle George.\u201d\u00a0 But, in a way, Daddy still won\u2014he started calling him Mike, and now that is what everyone calls my youngest brother.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

And when I laid eyes on Mike for the first time, I forgot that I hadn\u2019t wanted him.\u00a0 He was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen, or ever will see.\u00a0 And he was infectiously\u00a0 happy and charming.\u00a0 Mama would get irritated at me for carrying him all the time.\u00a0 \u201cYou\u2019re going to spoil that baby, and then we\u2019ll see if you\u2019re willing to keep toting him around.\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n

She was wrong.\u00a0 I don\u2019t remember ever getting tired of it, and when I left home to go to college four years later, leaving him was the hardest thing I had to do.\u00a0 Who was going to read to Mike, take him for walks in the woods, and play games with him?\u00a0 For a couple of months at Berry College I cried myself to sleep every night.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Mike survived.\u00a0 Against the odds, he turned out fine.\u00a0 And he has a place in my heart forever.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Turns out, Mike was what the whole family needed. Perhaps me, most of all.\u00a0 I still love you, baby brother.<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mike with his dog Brownie. Mike playing in the dirt. My latest book, HALLEY, awarded 2015 Jefferson Cup Honor for Historical Fiction, awarded the Moonbeam Silver Medal for Young Adult Fiction,\u00a0 and awarded the 2016 Frank Yerby Award for Fiction.\u00a0 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=510"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":515,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510\/revisions\/515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}