Bringing up the rear with Courtney

Well, here I am, to my sweet, loving, child number five. Courtney is my baby, and second daughter. I truly did not plan to have another baby after Shawn. She was a complete accident. Actually both my girls were accidents, only the boys were planned. Although both times I was so thrilled to get a girl.

Anyway, Courtney was born November 30th 1987. That was seventeen months (give or take a few weeks) after Shawn joined us. I fell in love with her immediately. She was such a beautiful baby girl and I had so much fun sewing for her and dressing her in darling little girl clothes. She and Shawn quickly became "The Babies". That was really what we called them. Where are "the Babies"? Can you go check on "the Babies"? Let's bring "the Babies" with us it will be easier.

You get the point.

Finally one day when she was probably almost three and Shawn must have been four, it suddenly occurred to me that they were no longer babies. It took us a while to get use to their new grown up status but we managed.

Courtney was the best thing to happen to Shawn. In fact after a few years I realized that they really were a set. Thanks to Courtney, Shawn was able to become as much as possible a normal kid. Since retarded and also autistic children mimic and follow the example of their peers, (which is why the school authorities suddenly got smart and started integrating them in with regular kids) Shawn did everything Courtney did and learned normalcy in a most loving and efficient way.

One of my favorite snips of our home videos, is Courtney running around the yard, with Shawn laughing his little machine gun laugh, following right behind her and Courtney saying (in her sweet little two year old voice) "Follow me Shawn, follow me." They were just such cute little companions, it was a joy to see them together.

Courtney was such an easy child. She was extremely shy. I never had to worry about losing her in a crowd because she was always glued to my side and was always willing to hold my hand.

One night, Don and I went to Shopko with Shawn and Courtney. Don had Shawn in his shopping cart and I had Courtney. She just wanted to sit in the bottom of the cart not in the seat and that night it became clear why.

We saw a couple from our ward there, whom we really liked. We started visiting with them and Neil, the husband, started laughing suddenly. It turns out that the minute Courtney saw him she threw herself down flat, face first into the bottom of the cart. She would not lift her head or make a sound until we were away from them.

A funny little tidbit, the wife, Laura, ended up being Courtney's third grade teacher, and they just loved each other, but Courtney was still always scared of her husband Neil.

Courtney was so afraid of large and or noisy men that one day we had a cable TV repairman come to the house to fix a problem with our cable. He was a really big guy but I could tell from the start that he was also a big, gentle, teddy bear of a guy. Unfortunately she didn't see it that way.

The second she saw him she screamed and ran from the room.

The poor guy was so embarrassed. I think he thought I would be upset with him for scaring my daughter. I really had to assure him that, that was just my little girl and that he had done nothing and not to worry about her. Of course it took a while after he was gone for me to convince her it was safe to come out from her room.

Another problem for my shy little Courtney, was the fact that she was such a beautiful little girl. People would always stop me and tell me how pretty or darling or cute or whatever she was. I know that most little girls would love this kind of attention. But for Courtney it was next to torture. I had to really work with her to try to be, if at least, not friendly, to at least not force her face into whatever part of me she was closest to.

She still isn't really comfortable with people gushing over her. She is still so little and cute that it still happens quite often.

One of the highlights of Courtney's young life was coloring contests. She love them and would enter every one of them she could. When she was in third grade, for Halloween, after Disney's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" had come out. I made her the most darling Esmeralda costume. She was so darn cute in it. That year she entered and won the Red Apple Supermarket coloring contest.

She won five dollars.

We took her in to get her picture taken for being the winner, and they were so thrilled to see her in her costume. After Halloween, they let her keep the picture she had colored as well as the photograph of her in her costume. She took it to school, and her teacher, (Our ward friend Laura like I mentioned earlier) thought it was so wonderful that she put Courtney's winning picture and the photo of her up on the classroom bulletin board.

My shy little daughter was actually very proud of that.


Courtney is and always has been such a sweet girl. She went through a period of being semi-goth. She wore mostly black and liked all things dark and gloomy. She still likes, shall we say, slightly off kilter "stuff".

But then so do I.

She loves the movie "Nightmare before Christmas" and has quite a good collection of paraphernalia from that movie. Actually everyone in our family likes that movie except for Don. (He never goes for the dark stuff like the rest of us do.) But Courtney loves it a lot and when she was young she even had a little crush on Jack Skellington. She loves Hello Kitty and has lots of her merchandise too. Lately though she has decided to shelve some of these things in favor of more adult and sophisticated apparel and decor.

I want to talk a little bit about what a kind, caring , person Courtney is.

About a year and a half ago I had a Dr appointment in Richland with a diabetes specialist. Courtney wanted to go with me because there were a couple places out there she had been wanting to go. Since I always love hanging out with her I was happy to bring her along. When we entered the doctor's office there in the middle of his waiting room was a poor bedraggled looking elderly woman that dial a ride had just delivered. She was so sad and lonely looking that it was a little uncomfortable for me. Well I was called in to the doctor and I was in there for probably 25 minutes or so. When I came out and told Courtney "lets go" she started to follow me. As we walked past the old woman, who was still there, I saw her reach out and take Courtney's hand and pat it and give her a shaky smile. Now what is up with that I wondered? And of course as soon as we got out to the parking lot I asked Courtney what that was about.

Apparently this poor old woman had thrown up shortly after I had gone in to see the doctor. She very quietly and hesitatingly started asking the women at the desk if they could help her. Courtney told me that they just ignored the woman and acted like they hadn't noticed anything. After a few seconds of this Courtney realized that no one was going to respond to this woman. She got up and went over to the old woman and rubbed her back and told her that she would be right back. Then she went into the bathroom and got a big wad of paper towels and got them wet and came out to help clean this dear lady. She had to go back a few times to get more paper towels and even once asked the women at the desk if they could help her.

These women pretty much ignored her and didn't offer any help at all.

The old woman told Courtney very quietly that she was so embarrassed. Courtney stood there by her side for most of the rest of the time that I was in the doctor's office rubbing her back and trying her best to comfort her.

When she told me this story and said that at first she didn't know what to do but then she said she realized that no one else was going to help so she knew what she had to do. I was so proud of her and so humbled thinking about the attitude I had, had when I first saw this lady. I honestly don't know if I would have done what my daughter had done. Or at least so quickly and unselfconsciously.

Courtney is just that kind of person.

She and her big sister Heidi make me so proud by the sweet, unselfish, service they give, without any thought for what's in it for them.

I think Courtney learned this kind of love from the beginning, by being such a good "big" sister to Shawn. She has always looked out for him and shown him the way. The funny thing is, she told me, a few years ago, that she never knew that there was ever anything wrong with Shawn. She just naturally loved him and was always so good and patient with him.

My mom has been one of the beneficiaries of Courtney's sweet nature. Courtney goes out of her way to remember my mom. She loves to bring her flowers. Whenever she comes with me to take my mom out ,Courtney always is the one to help her get to the car and put her walker away for her. She does so many kind, considerate, little things for my mom that mom loves to brag about her, and tell every one, what a sweet girl her granddaughter is.

Courtney's first job was at Nothing but Noodles. She really liked it there for a long time. That is also where she met her current boyfriend Nathan. He is a really good guy who treats her wonderfully, which is good because she has had some really loser boyfriends that I never thought were worthy of her. Well she was a model employee at Noodles. They relied on her so much that it turned into a situation where they started taking advantage of her. Many of the customers there loved Courtney and always asked for her when they came in. She was close to becoming a manager there but they passed her over for a guy ,that had worked there longer but had a terrible approach to customer service. He didn't really even want to be a manager (or at least that's what he told Courtney.) That was pretty much the last straw for her and she quit Noodles.

She pretty quickly got a job at Target. She has been there since I think the middle of October. She was hired as Holiday help but they liked her so much that they let her know after a month that she would be permanent. She loves Target and she really loves it when her favorite customers from Noodles discover she works there and are so thrilled to see her again.

Courtney has had problems with depression since she was thirteen or so. At one point she was diagnosed as bi-polar. I never thought that was accurate, but I wasn't any kind of expert so I figured, what do I know? She has recently been going to a wonderful counselor name Marcia. She is benefiting a lot from this and is starting to feel better about her life.

Courtney decided several years ago that she does not want to be a member of the Church. It has been hard for us to accept, especially for Don, but I love her and accept her for whaatever she believes. She is such a sweet, giving, generous and caring person who always tries to think of other people's feelings that I think she is perfect as is. If she ever seems a little standoffish when I run into friends and family when she is with me, it's not that she is unfriendly. She just isn't comfortable around church members, she is afraid of being judged. I know that one day she will be able to come to terms with the things that make her feel uncomfortable and everyone will be able to see her for the incredible compassionate person that she is.

I love this little daughter of mine and I am so proud to be her mom.