Sarah Kate has always been a fighter.
When she was only one day old, Mr. Andi and I sat in the NICU, helplessly looking on as her duty nurse poked, prodded, checked, and rechecked her vitals, her IV, and all of the other things that nurses check when babies are born weighing only two-and-a-half pounds.
Because we could do nothing else, we asked questions.
The nurse patiently answered us, and I wondered how many other parents had asked her the same questions. It was just another day at work for her, but for us it was all scary and new. After a few minutes, she volunteered some information that it had never occurred to us to seek: Sarah Kate was feisty. I didn’t quite understand how she could know that, or even why it mattered, but she explained that it’s a good sign when a preemie is feisty, because they tend to have fewer problems. Just like adults, their prognosis is improved if they are willing to fight. Every three hours, the nurses would poke and prod her, and every time they did she would scream her head off. Once they stopped, she would calm down and go back to sleep.
Over the years, she’s demonstrated time and again how hard she will push and scrape to do what she wants.
When Sarah Kate was about two and a half, we were at a barbecue at the home of some friends. The hosts had a son very close in age to Sarah Kate (I’ll call him W) and they played together a lot. He was a rough-and-tumble boy who flitted from one thing to the next and cut a path of destruction wherever he went. Sarah Kate, by contrast, was calm and sat quietly most of the time – partly because it was her nature, but she also simply didn’t have the ability to run around and be rowdy. She was still a long way from walking, swimming, and softball in those days.
Mr. Andi, Sarah Kate, and I, along with several other couples and all of their various children, were out in the barn. The concrete floor was littered with some of W’s more durable, larger toys, and I sat on one side of the room with Sarah Kate kneeling at my feet, playing with a bright yellow dump truck. W ran around the room reveling in all of the excitement and activity.
Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks.
He spotted Sarah Kate playing with his truck and I could tell from his expression that he wasn’t pleased. He bolted toward her from across the room, grabbed it with both hands, and tried to wrest it from her. He was both bigger and stronger, so it should have been an easy win for him. But it wasn’t.
She saw him coming and steeled herself for the assault.
Unlike most two-year-olds, she didn’t try to pull it away from him. Instead, she gripped the truck tightly with both hands, braced her upper body, and looked directly at his face. As he yanked and jerked, attempting to snatch it away from her, his blond locks bouncing and bobbing, she held firm, motionless and unflinching. If looks could kill, he’d have dropped dead right on the floor of the barn, so intent and determined was her gaze.
Eventually, he overpowered her and managed to make off with the truck. When he did, she didn’t cry or pout. In fact, she didn’t react at all. She merely accepted her defeat against a worthy opponent and moved on to something else.
Andi,
Happened to me today, with a twist. I was at a thrift shop with a friend, and helping him hold a place in line(so he could go back and get something he desired, which took extra lifting. A male tapped me on my back, tried to grab me (with witnesses) and pick me up and move me. I grabbed him, pulled him up to my level, my startle reflex (severe) kicked in, he landed backwards on bottom of me, I yelled at him, cops got called, his antics were explained by staff and by witnesses. He was handcuffed by an Deputy (who was a friend of mine), hauled into the Justice Center (had outstanding warrants, arrested and bound over to the Grand Jury) and I get to report this on air as a journalist. Not my day. Those who invade my personal space, get warned than when I go spastic, the results won’t be pretty (and they might get bruised up) and no one will like them doing it. SK has to be tough to survive, let alone advance to who she is today, beautiful, proud and independent. And that kid had to learn respect. And she learned to give it to someone worthy. I didn’t always win on a toy battle when little, my stepbrothers learned to be respectful (I dislocated a stepbrother’s shoulder when little over a toy, and got the better of him, he learned I was no lightweight, he got over it quick, (he was 3 years older than me, and some 40 pounds on me) a neighbor kid 4 years older tried to make mine and stepsister with Cleft Palate’s life tough, he spent 10 days in hospital, 4 stepbrothers and one brother saw to that, Amy and I were protected highly) and neighbor kids sometimes learned toughly. A part of growing up when little. Never underestimate Sarah Kate or me, when we set out to do things, we get it done, preemie tough is how we roll (and we never lose that)