Had I not carried this child for 9 months and been fully conscious (perhaps too conscious) when I birthed her, I could not claim her as my own. We never have to ask Malina to do her homework, clean her room or do her laundry (at age 8). She's organized and responsible, detail-oriented and prone to saying things like "Mom, they sent a lunch account notice home A-GAIN. I don't know how many times I have to remind you about this. At some point they're just not going to let me eat."
With guests in the house (and their twin one-year-olds), Malina is sleeping on the floor in our room for the next week because she gave up her room to allow extra space for them (not only willingly but uncharacteristically pleasantly), and she actually took the initiative to put clean sheets on the bed without being asked. Yes, weird. Yes, nearly unheard of. I know. I don't understand it either, given my well-documented aversion to housekeeping of any kind (see several chapters in Laugh, Cry, Eat Some Pie for vivid and disturbing details).
In any case, I walked into my (quite messy) bedroom this morning to spy Malina's little corner of the room tidied just so, with sleeping-bag bed neatly made, clothes uniformly stacked on the makeshift bed, books stacked with precision on her pillow, and her slippers placed "just so" at the foot of the bed. I again had to ask myself "can I really claim this child as my own? It just doesn't make sense...my genes could not possibly produce a child this meticulously tidy and organized."
To prove it, I'll let you in on a little secret: I then had to take a snapshot of her mini-domicile from four different angles to make sure it ONLY showed her bed so it wouldn't reveal the "chaotic but warm and lived in" nature of the rest of my bedroom (AKA the "scene of the grime"). Here's proof:
I'm thinking something skipped a generation. No doubt about that. But we all have to celebrate our own strengths, right? RIGHT?
