Maverick in the Middle

She didn’t like being twelve.

It felt like someplace between who she’d been
and who she was about to be.

― Alice Hoffman, The Story Sisters

Poor Mav is basically the living, breathing personification of middle child syndrome.

Not testing boundaries and breaking the parents in and hogging attention by being a royal pain in the ass. That’s the privilege of the oldest child.

Not whining and being cute to get his way. That’s the MO of the youngest child.

No, Maverick has been the easygoing, fair-tempered child his entire life… and so he tends to miss out on stuff amidst the demands of life and noisier siblings.

Things like birthday blog posts. His birthday was August 10th. I’m sorry, buddy. I’ll make it up to you in photo collages.

I’ve mentioned before, in Jake’s birthday blog posts, that Jake was a very demanding child attention-wise. He had a lot of little medical issues it took us a long time to figure out, and so he was colicky and clingy and didn’t sleep well. I wasn’t at all sure I could handle a second baby when I found out I was carrying one. I was scared out of my ever-loving mind that I wasn’t ready for two kids.

Maverick was an easy pregnancy. He arrived after a very short labor, all 9.5 pounds of him. Since he was so big, he had to be pricked for blood sugar tests every 2 hours while in the hospital, and he took it uncomplainingly like a champ.

9.5 pounds at birth meant he fit into 4-6mo clothes within weeks- this was the photo we sent out with birth announcements, I think.

The night we came home from the hospital, he nursed, went to sleep in his bassinet, and I fell asleep in my own bed… and woke up some 7 hours later, to the light of day.

He’d slept through the night his first night home.

(People tend not to believe this, but my hand to god it’s true. And to this day the kid treasures his sleep. I don’t care if we’re at a kicking party or the Queen of England is hanging out, bedtime will roll around and Mav will be like, see ya suckers, I’m tired.)

Anyway, it sounds awesome but it was most definitely not. It was probably the most terrifying moment of my life, waking up and realizing he hadn’t wakened to nurse. Jeff and I were so very afraid, going to the bassinet and looking in. But he got up, although it took some effort and he was grumpy about it. Mav is not a morning person.

It’s funny how many personality traits can be disclosed right away. Maverick, in 12 years, hasn’t done much but confirm that he is who he is. He’s laid back, easy to please, but stubborn as hell. He is silly but sweet. He likes food. He likes to know how things work. He like math, and animals. This is the way I’ve been describing him since he was about 18 months old, and it still holds true.

He went through a period of time when he wouldn’t pose for a picture. Well, no, that’s not true at all. I have tons of pictures of him and he posed gleefully. He just wouldn’t smile for the camera. We call this “monsterface.” “Oh look, here’s another picture of Mav in monsterface.” (Jake went through a similar phase where he’d cross his eyes for photos, we called them his “gooey eyes.”)

Eventually we all gave up and everybody was all about the monsterface.

This is off-topic, but Mav has the hardest head known to man. This picture makes me laugh every time because I know Mav inadvertantly headbutted Jeff just before it was taken. There was this audible crack— yet he is unfazed.

Maverick was born in the year 2000, a millenium baby, Year of the Dragon just like his parents. I tell you this mostly because I once laboriously made him a dragon costume, forming a delicate wing skeleton to hang an even more delicate gold-embossed fabric that I’d been holding onto for years on… and he slept through the Halloween parade and had to wear a coat for trick-or-treating. Behold the dragon.

During his one year in Catholic school, Jake was required to dress for Halloween as a saint, so he was St. George and Mav was the dragon.

Occupying the 5th position in the Chinese Zodiac, the Dragon is the mightiest of the signs. Dragons symbolize such character traits as dominance and ambition. Dragons prefer to live by their own rules and if left on their own, are usually successful. They’re driven, unafraid of challenges, and willing to take risks. They’re passionate in all they do and they do things in grand fashion. Unfortunately, this passion and enthusiasm can leave Dragons feeling exhausted and interestingly, unfulfilled.

While Dragons frequently help others, rarely will they ask for help. Others are attracted to Dragons, especially their colorful personalities, but deep down, Dragons prefer to be alone. Perhaps that is because they’re most successful when working alone. Their preference to be alone can come across as arrogance or conceitedness, but these qualities aren’t applicable. Dragons have tempers that can flare fast!

That sounds about right.

Maverick is 12 now, an in-between year, too old to baby and yet not a teen. I don’t know how much longer he’ll let me post photos of him blasted with pink, or playing a fife…