Stuck in the middle with Kelly

I don't know why, but things that come easy to me, such as sewing, cooking, and now writing blogs, suddenly become a chore when I have to do them. What I mean at this particular time, is that I promised to write a blog about each of my children. I know I have a very small audience, but there are people that are asking for my next post. This would be for child number three.

My son Kelly.

Kelly is probably my most complex child. I often think of him as my dark child. I do not mean that in a bad way at all. Kelly is kind of the tortured artist type. He is extremely smart and creative. He has written lots, and I do mean lots, of songs. He also writes stories. He would like to write an actual book but he hasn't quite developed the discipline to accomplish that yet.

Now there is something really ironic here about me saying that Kelly is my dark child because of all my children he is the only one who is a

BLONDE ! ! !

It never occurred to me I could have a blonde child. I have darker hair and brown eyes. Both sides of my family, the Brinkerhoffs and the Mathews are dark people. And my husband Don has almost black hair. But here comes along this beautiful little blonde boy into our family.

Kelly is also the classic middle child. I had Donald and Heidi within a year of each other. Then we determined to wait a few years for our next child. So Donald was, four and a half and Heidi was, three and a half, when Kelly was born. Kelly was going to be my last baby and I enjoyed him so much knowing he would be my last.

Then Shawn came along when Kelly was four and a half.

That's how Kelly became a true middle child. Courtney was born when he was six, so it's like we had the two older kids, the two babies, and Kelly smack in the middle. It was really hard for poor little Kelly to give up his role as the baby of the family. And for some reason when Shawn was born he was very upset to have a brother instead of a sister.

When Don brought my three older children to see me in the hospital I could hear Kelly screaming all the way up the hall to my room

PUT IT BACK!!!! PUT IT BACK!!!!

Obviously, Kelly did not take well to his role as big brother. In fact there are times when I'm not sure if he has ever forgiven Shawn for being born.

Well that's all background. Now to talk about Kelly. He was such a joy to me as a little boy. Since he was so much younger than Donald and Heidi, there were a few years when they were in school and it was just me and my little Kelly at home. He was my constant companion. Wherever I went I would take Kelly with me. Because of this he became a complete Momma's Boy.

He still is a Momma's Boy.

Kelly had an impossible time saying his R's. Because of this, he was so cute to listen to. The only problem was (and still is) that he was very sensitive to us laughing about the cute way he would say things. It is still a standing joke in our family the Christmas when he was really into WWF Wrestling and he got a bunch of the action figures. We have on video tape him opening up and shrieking with delight,

Oh Boy ! ! ! The Ultimate Woe-wee-ower ! ! !
(That's warrior for those of you who don't speak six year old Kelly).

Kelly loved movies. He was completely into " Back To The Future" and the "Star Wars" Movies. He would decide that he was Marty McFly and he would not answer to anything but Marty McFly. This caused a little trouble when one day he refused to get on his Kindergarten bus until the driver would call him Marty. Fortunately She was a nice lady and I was able to smooth things out. He also was Luke Skywal-koe (that would be Skywalker to you) quite often.

One Halloween, when he was a little older, he wanted to be a Ghost Bus-toe ( Buster). I made him a very good replica of their costume, and also bought him some toy gun thing (it might have even been an actual Ghost Buster Gun thingee, I can't remember for sure , although we do have pictures.) Oh he loved that costume. He would have worn it everywhere (even to school) if I had let him.

He also went through a karate phase.

We have some highly entertaining footage of he and Donald out on the lawn doing their karate moves on each other. In fact, pretending he was someone else, was one of the factors in one of my favorite Kelly stories.

When He was in second grade it came to my attention that Eastgate Elementary was going to have a talent contest. Kelly was usually kind of shy and not really one to be outgoing. So I was shocked when he and his teacher started talking to me about Kelly wanting to be in this contest. All he would tell me was that he was going to sing "Midnight Rock".

Now that I think about it this was probably the very first time he wrote a song.

Anyway he kept telling me he needed a guitar so that he could do "Midnight Rock" at his talent show. I didn't pay much attention to him because (A.) I couldn't see my shy little boy getting up in front of the whole school and performing. And (B.) I was sure this was just another one of his ,being someone else fantasies. I admit I was completely in the wrong here. I told him he couldn't do the talent show. I swear I thought I was saving him from himself. I called his teacher to talk about it with her and much to my amazement she informed me that he had been practicing for weeks in front of his class and that they all loved his act.

She had also made him a cardboard guitar.

It's really kind of brave of me to tell this story because it was not one of my proudest mothering moments. I didn't go to the talent show. I had two babies at home and for some stupid reason I didn't see it as the important occasion it was. Am I the only Mother out there who would love to go back and do SO many things differently? Well in spite of my lack of support Kelly did go on and did sing (with the help of his cardboard guitar) "Midnight Rock". His teacher called me later that day, to tell me that Kelly had been a . . . . .

HUGE SMASH SUCCESS

I was so proud of him and so ashamed of myself for trying to hold him back. He came home with his little guitar and told me all about it and even Donald had been impressed and proud of his little brother.

Heidi reminded me of this Kelly thing.

Kelly had a big wheel that he REALLY liked. He rode that thing for years. He went all over the neighborhood with that silly big wheel. By the time he was nine years old he was still riding it. We offered to get him a bike but he had no interest. He just wanted his big wheel. It didn't bother me at all really because he got so much joy from tooling around our neighborhood on it. However he had a big sister ( Heidi) who did not find it cute or endearing or anything of the sort. It was a constant source of embarrassment to her that her almost ten year old brother was still going everywhere on a big wheel. We had many heated discussions on the subject. Heidi finally felt she had to take matters into her own hands and I'm not sure when or how she did it but she got rid of that big wheel. Poor Kelly was devastated. We got him a bike, that he soon fell in love with, but I know Heidi has always felt pretty guilty about doing that to Kelly.

She really is sorry Kelly, just so you know.

It seems that there have been several instances where we have tried to save Kelly from himself. I think things would have been better if we had trusted his ideas a little bit more. At least he has his best friend Katrina whom he has known for years. She is one of his biggest fans and can usually help him put things in perspective.

Kelly is the one child of mine, that really moves to the beat of a different drummer. He is incredibly sweet and sensitive. He adores each of his little nieces and is so good to them. He loves cats. He is always so kind and gentle with them and when they need to have drops in their eyes or ears or anything else applied Kelly is the one nominated to do it.

He hasn't really figured out this thing called life all the way yet, but I'm sure in his own time and more importantly in his own way, he will. Hopefully he will make it to college one of these days to hone the many, many talents he possesses.

He is a really good guy and I love him very much.