The Middle Child: Do they really have issues??

YES WE DO.

I read a book called " The Birth Order Book" by Kevin Lehman. And after reading it I would have sworn ( that is if I swear) that he knew my sisters and I. He had us pegged. And we were a perfect case study. With us all being females and born 3 years apart. It changes things a little if there are four or more, if there are children of the opposite sex, or if there are several years between the siblings.
( there's even more inter sting variables but you will have to read the book) which I recommend). But I will give you a little summary of how he describes the first born, middle child ( ME) and the baby of the family. And this will help you know my sisters and I even more

The first born: can you guess any traits this special child has.. Does bossy come to mind, how about this is the sign of natural leaders. You’re a take-charge person. because “oldest kids are planners,” says Dr. Lehman. You’re also old-fashioned (in a good way). You always come through on anniversaries and Valentine’s Day.

Now this describes my older sister perfectly. Growing up whenever we had a problem she always knew just what to do. To this day she is the one who remember to send cards and phone calls for all occasions. As far as bossy goes. I wouldn't call her bossy ( well at least not here because she reads this blog... haha just kidding) but we did always call her our "other mom" She did like to act like she wasn;t "one of the girls" but our superior. But I love having an older sister. And I have the best older sister.


Middle child : middle kids actually make stable and loyal partners. “One thing you’re not is spoiled,” Dr. Lehman says. You probably grew up feeling like you got less attention than your siblings, and that drives you to work for every perk .You’re “a compromiser and negotiator... middles hate conflict); instead, you try to put others at ease..

Yea I would say this sounds like me... if you ask my sisters I have lots of stories where I feel like I had an unfair advantage, felt left out, didn't get as much attention. ( More on these stories) But you do feel that you are not old enough to do certain things but then you don't get out of doing things because you are too small. I may joke and complain and my sisters tease me about my issues..... Including... always having to sit in the middle, having to sleep in the floor at hotels, having to pick up after my younger sister because she was too "tired" and my older sister was busy with friends .. ok don't get me started on the issues. But there are definite good points. I got to share a room with both of my sisters, I have been close to them both, and as far as being a negotiator. that is definately me. i always kept the peace.


Youngest child: You’re all about fun. The most outgoing of all in the birth order spectrum, youngest children live to have a good time (it may be because your parents were more laid-back by the time you came along). some youngest children — not you, of course! — use that last-born charm and charisma to be a bit, ahem, manipulative, says Dr. Leman.

Yes this describes my younder sister.. She is so much fun and knows how to have a good time. She is very sponatanous ( one of the things I love about her). Growing up and still today...she always has lots of friend. And she is a great firend. And growing up I tease her that one of my Issues is that she used her cutestness to get what she wanted. Well I do have to admit that she was pretty cute. She also got out of doing the dishes on her night because she always conviently " had to go to the bathroom" just when it was time to clean. We still joke her about that to this day.

So yes middle children do have issues, but i think we also have some perks too( but shush, dont tell my sisters I said that)

So you can see that as a middle child I may have a few issues but I dont think I would want to be any other place..

Really, who names a dog Christie ?

Have you ever had an experience that at the time it was traumatic but after you survived it and look back on you find it pretty funny. Well I had one of those experiences when I was only five years old.

It is one of my earliest memories that I have.

My friend and I were riding our Big Wheels back and forth across the street ( This was back in those days when you could ride your bikes in the neighbor hood).. Did I just say back in the day?? Wow I am getting old..) OK back to the story. My friend lived across the street and we loved to start in each others driveway and race back and forth.

One day I was in her driveway and she was in mine and we were getting ready to race. She yelled out to me, probably saying something like, let;s go Christie or come on Christie, I can;t remember exactly, i was only 5 after all. Anyways, when I heard my name I started peddling as fast as I could. It was a race after all. Well just when I started picking up speed, I heard a strange sounds behind me. It sounded something like clicking and panting. Before I could turn around to see where the sound was coming from I felt something pounce on me and then I felt the pain. My friends dog, a German Shepherd, had broken his chain and came right for me. She bit me in my shoulder. The rest i don't really remember, just bits and pieces, like voices calling out to the dog, someone grabbing the dog, crying( that may have been me).

I remember my friends mom carrying me to my house, i remember the look of panic on my moms face, I remember laying in the backseat of the car on the way to the hospital. I don't really remember being at the hospital. But I do know from what my parents told me that I only needed a few stitches. I can only imagine how scary that day was for me, but what I remember most was what happened after. My friends parents were so sweet to me. They brought me a puppet and little gifts, the dog was tested for rabies and I had a cool story to tell and scar to show off. I mean alot of people have been bitten by a dog, but how many can say they have been bitten by a dog that had the same name as them. That;s right, the dog that bit me that day was named Christie, really Who names a dog Christie?

" I ain't nothing but a winner" The Bear

Looking up to Bear Bryant, how could I not be competitive? Being a middle child, how could I not be competitive? With me playing sports, how could I not be competitive.

If you know me at all then you know I am competitive. I don't like to lose, I don't like being told that I can't do it, I LIKE... no I LOVE to win. I know, I can admit, it's not my best trait. I am working on it..

Thinking back I am not sure when it started. I mean I don't know if as a baby I had to crawl faster than the other babies, I don't know if I had to win at Candyland, but I do remember.......

I jumped out of our 2 story window as a child to prove to a boy that girls can do anything that boys can do ( I jumped.. he didn;t... point proven)

Treading water for over an hour because my sister said I couldn't for 15 minutes.

Being devasted because we lost the volleyball game to go to districts my senior year of high school.

My friends would not want to be on my team in Pictionary because I would yell at them when they were not paying attention. ( I know not the friendliest thing to do)

Watching every Alabama football game and gloating after every win and feeling every defeat like I played the game myself.

Jumping hurdles in the county track meet to get extra points for the team and almost killing myself because I had never practiced hurdles before.

Being competivie with myself and I was always trying to see how fast I could accomplish a task.

Timing myself to see how how fast I could complete a word search find.

I am not sure where I get this competitve spirit, and I call it a spirit because yes at times it is like I am possessed, for as I have gotten older I have tried working on it. I try to convince myself that I don;t have to win at everything, ok I am still working on this one.

But it does not help that my husband is just as competitve. I think that is one of the things that attracticed us to each other. WE met playing beach volleyball. And to this day we still love competing against each other. And I must admit that my oldest son also has the competivite spirit. He loves to challenge me to arm westling and pushup contest ( which I am happy to say that as of now I can still beat him at both... but not for long). When he was five and playing Bible Bingo at church and won he pointed to the other boy and said " in your face". That was a great opportunity to teach him a lesson in graceful winning. It also opened my eyes that I needed to learn that lesson as well. Now don't get me wrong, I am not cured . I still like to win but I can be more gracious about it and if I lose ( and that is a big "if") then I know its not the end of the world.

I jumped, he didn't...... Point proven

Growing up I was a tomboy. I wanted to do everything that the boys would do. I loved climbing trees. I loved riding skateboards down the steepest hill. I loved playing kick ball, basketball,tag, you name it. I did not like it if someone said I couldn't do something. I would love to prove them wrong.

One of my best friends was a boy. We were insepeable and would play all over the neighborhood until the street lights came on. We had no fear. We would ride our bikes all the way to the Piggly Wiggly( we were maybe, 8 years old) by ourselves. We would challenge the big kids( 11-12 yr olds, including my big sis .. who was also a tomboy) to football and foot races.

But the bravest thing we ever did was hang out at the "haunted house" at the end of our street. You see there was one of those huge white colonial southern plantation house in a cul-de-sac at the end of our street. There was a rumor around the neighborhood kids that the place was haunted with the demon attack dogs that lived in the attic. But it was also known that they had a trampoline that they let kids jump on. This added another level of excitement because my mom didn't allow us to jump on trampolines( of course that didnt stop us). Well one day we were there and we went into the house( I can;t rememember why but I will say to use the bathroom). WEll curiosity got the better of us and we made the long climb up the stairs to the door at the top. Just as we were leaning in to open it... we heard the most ferious barking. I have never ran down a flight of stairs as fast as I did that day.

We may have been best friends and did everything together but we fought like brother and sister. And most of our fights had to do with who ran faster, play harder, or was most daring. And no matter how many times I beat him he still teased me about being a girl and how boys are stronger and braver. Well one day I had enough and wanted to settle the argument once and for all. I bet him that I was brave enough to jump out of my second story window( ok... now I see that I was stupid enough) . ANnyways we made a bet to prove a point that girls can do anything that guys can do, My friend finally said I will if you will..But you go first. So I did.. I jumped and he didn;t.. Point proven. From that day on he never teased me about being a girl again.

It was 1980 something......

My husband and I like talk about what it would be like to grow up during a different decade. He is fascinated with the 20's ( cool cars and suits) and I always thought the 50's were cool ( who didn't love Happy Days)..but now that I look back on it. Growing up in the 80's was pretty "rad".

Garbage pail kids cards were my generation's pokemon cards. Pacman and frogger were my generations X-box. Cabbage patch kids were my generation's tickle me elmo. I still remember the stories of women fighting over these little dolls in the stores at Christmas.

MTV actually showed music videos and we watched them all day and into the night.

Big hair, bangle bracelets,jelly shoes and parachute pants we all the rave and wearing them all together was even better

Madonna and Michael topped the charts.

Everyone was asking " Who's the Boss? Mike Seaver had all the girls hearts fluttering. And Bill Huxtable was the ideal family man

Everyone was dancing to the Breakin soundtrack.

HeeHaw was a show people loved to watch, even if they wouldn't admit it.

Every girl felt grown up when she got to wear Love's Baby Soft.


We all LEARNED how to walk like an Egyptian, what would happen if you feed a Gizmo after midnight, that the Duke boys were the coolest rednecks on TV , who we were gonna call and we all wanted to be a member of the Brat Pack.

We all wanted to KNOW just what was a monchi chi chi and if they were in dead soft and cuddly, why smurfeete was the only female, just what was Willis was talking about, just exactly what a Fraggle is and where was the beef?


We just HAD to find out if Weebles wobbled but they didnt fall down, if there really was a place where everyone knows your name, if the Rubix cube could be solved and if Hanz and Franz could really Pump you up


Thinking back I loved the 80's. It seemed like a more innocent time. The music was fun , the clothes a little crazy, but the times a lot simpler. If you grew up or was around in the 80's then you can relate to this post and actually understand what I am talking about. If not then you ,missed out on a great decade and may be reliving it with the oldies station, or 80's night for Halloween( kids are still dressing up like Madonna or Michael). I hope you enjoyed this Blast from the Past and please feel free to share your favorite 80's fad, fashions, or song.

Don't make me pull over"

When I was a child, going on a road trip was one of my all time favorite things to do. And we went on quite a few. I loved the anticipation of counting down the days until it was time to leave. I loved the excitement of packing for the trip. I loved being so excited the night before that we would hardly sleep. I remember begging our parents to let us sleep in the car so we would be ready to go. Of course they wouldn't agree to that but it didn't stop us from sleeping in our clothes , shoes and all. Hey,I didnt want to miss a minute of the trip by sleeping in and having to get dressed. I wanted to be ready!!

My mom started the " fun bag" tradition . We would each get one bag( a back pack, favotite canvas bag, you name it) And we could fill it with all kinds of fun things to do. Mine was always packed with books ( it was a requirement from my daddy... he said it kept me from talking the whole trip), crossword puzzles, markers, paper, a deck of cards, and of course MadLibs. Now rememeber, this was before DVD players in the car, before I-pods,and before handheld game systems. My sisters and I could keep busy for hours with just a few pieces of paper and a pen. We would play tic-tac-toe, hangman, car bingo, the license plate game, the dot/box game( rememeber the game that you put dots all over the paper and took turns trying to turn them into boxes) Loved that one. Well anyways, we loved playing games. And when we got bored with that we would pull out the Cassette tapes ( yes I said cessette) and play our favorite road trip music. We knew all the words to the Alabama Greatest Hits, The Oakridge Boys and even the Statler Brothers.( any other times we hated listnening to my parents "old" music, but there was something about those songs when we were on the road. But our favorites were Daddy's Hands, Fishing in the Dark and Sweet Home Alabama.

Now this may sound like it was always a good time and we all got along great, but you have to remember there were three girls trapped in a car for several hours at a time. Trust me there was fighting. Before we got the minivan the biggest thing we fought over was who would get to sit by the window. Someone had to be in the middle. We also fought over what music to play, how it was not fair when someone won a game, and of course the common " She's touching me". My mom would say to us the usual... stop that, leave your sister alone and when she had HAD ENOUGH ( as she would say) we would hear.... Don;t make me pull over. Which was always just an empty threat...Until one time I guess she had FINALLY REALLY had enough and she pulled the car over.. It was NOT fun.. Let me just say that on future road trips.. She would only have to say " Don't make me pull over one time and we would straighten right up. Trust me it was better to have to be the one to sit in the middle than have my parents pull the car over.

And even though I am all grown up , I have never outgrown my love of road trips. I love playing the same fun games with my boys. ( Actually before we had kids ,I subjected my husband to play them.) And even though he rolls his eyes a week before our planned trip when I pull out my favorite backpack and fill it with all my fun games, I know he loves those games as much as I do. And I am proud to say , so do our boys. We took a trip last summer and we didnt have a DVD player, Ipods, or handhelpd games ( well actually my oldest had his PSP,but he hardly played it) They preferred my old fashioned games. Makes a mama proud. And I have to admit, there was fighting, and whining and complaining, but I was smiling as I shouted out... Don't make me pull over.

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"Every redneck girl wants a cowboy to sweep them off their feet"