The 3 year-old shoplifter

“Beep, beep, beep!” The alarm goes off in the store. I stopped sighed annoyingly and waited for the casher to come and check my bag to make sure I didn’t steel anything. Just as I thought it was nothing and the casher just told me that I could go. I went back to my car and buckled Brooke in her car seat and off we went again to yet another store. 

This was one of those days that I would take little Brooke through many of stores and would tell her not to touch anything, but that only intrigued her even more, than if I wouldn’t of said anything. Later on I found four pairs of the same earrings in my purse, but could not figure out how they got there. I sat and pondered on this and came to a conclusion that Brooke put these earrings in my purse when I wasn’t looking. I asked her if she had recognized these earrings and she said, “Yeah mommy I thought they would look pretty on you.” I sighed and chuckled, because they were pierced earrings, I couldn’t wear them. I didn’t have my ears pierced, and didn’t want holes in my ears either. But it was very cute that she thought of me like that. 

The only thing is I did not know how I would give them back. I mean what do I say, “Sorry, but my daughter put these earrings in my purse and I didn’t know.” I mean that’s really not believable.  The man would probably think that I am crazy.  So I just decided just to keep them. Later on in the year the store went out of business.  I feel awful, but there is nothing I can do about it now.  How could my little precious princess be a shoplifter at the age of three? Oh my goodness, I have so much to teach her.

Growing up

“Duck!” that was my littlest first word as she pointed to a little blow up duck that quacked when you squeezed it.  She turned with such delight on her face; it was almost like she knew that she said it right.  That’s all she said for about the next three hours. 

            Soon, it began to be mom, dad, Blake, Brad, grandma, and many more words. Those words started to be little phrases, then full out sentences. I was so happy she could talk.

            At the age of one she met her neighbor, but didn’t really start playing with her until the age of two. This was my little daughter’s best friend, Michelle. They lived next door, which made it very convenient for Michelle’s mother and me; we didn’t have to drive anywhere. They would play for hours and hours day after day. They surprisingly never got sick of seeing each other. It kept her very busy and occupied. I was happy she has a best friend, and thought that would only last for a couple of years or so, but I was wrong about that.  It became very normal to say Brooke and Michelle together almost as one name. 

            Then, came the dreaded day of preschool. I think it was harder for me than Brooke.  She already had a friend Michelle there and knew another girl named Hannah. I just had to keep telling myself that she was going to be fine, but it was hard to make myself believe that. I wanted her to stay home with me, but she had to go. 

Of course she had no problem going in there after she saw Michelle there. She made new friends very quickly. Brooke was very social and always wanted to meet new people. She knew almost every one in the class and would know something interesting about them. She had those social skills from her father.

Brooke and Michelle loved preschool and would talk about how much fun they had and what they learned every single day. I thought that friendship would end there, but it continued for many years.   

The Story Continues

We were stuck together in this cold, but somewhat happy room for another day. We were the only ones in the hospital when the ball dropped for the first time for my little Brooke. It was 1992. Then, as always, they had the tradition of the fire works in Disney and my little baby’s eyes were just so fascinated by them; it was like she had ping-pong balls for eyes. She just stared and stared so intensely that I don’t think that a fire would unglue her eyes from that television. They were bright colors of red, blue, green, and white.  Brooke loved those fireworks. 

            We soon went to bed and before we knew it, we were at home. Home was a lovely word when you have felt like you were sick from all the germs in that hospital. But Brooke didn’t seem to have a problem with the germs, and all she did was sleep. We actually gave Brooke the nickname of Sleeping Beauty because of that.  She was such and easy baby, unlike my other two children. 

My first child, Brad, was more of the conservative, gentle spirited kind of guy. My mother would baby-sit him so, like any ordinary grandparent, she didn’t like to do many active things. We also told him that chocolate was bad, so he would not eat chocolate until the age of about thirteen because he thought he didn’t like it. But the truth is that my husband and I told him that it was bad, so he just never ate it, until he realized that it was bad for your heath not bad in taste. Blake, on the other hand was the wild child of the family. When I would come home from work he would run to me and stand in front of me and scream so hard that I think the neighbors could hear him. I would quickly have to run to the refrigerator and get him a cold bottle of milk, and then he would stop. But it wasn’t over; he would stand there in the middle of the floor and chug the entire bottle. And when he was done he didn’t hand me the bottle like a good little boy, but he threw it over his shoulder and continued on playing with Brad. I knew Brooke wouldn’t be like that. She would be this nice sweet little baby. It seemed that every move I made she would study intensely. She understood words that people used. It was a fun experience to watch her grow.

As she grew older, she began to start to talk and walk and look more and more like her dad and me.  She had blond hair, little wrists, long fingers, and the little mouth like me. She also had the beautiful nose, long legs, and the appetite from her father. It was almost like she was the perfect mix between the both of us. My first son, Brad, was more like my husband, and Blake was more like me, but Brooke was just a median. When she was with me she, would get “Oh, my goodness you look exactly like your mother”.  But when she was with her father she would get “Wow, you look just like your dad”.

The Beginning of my life through the eyes of my Mother

There, a perfect little child just born into this sinful, unforgiving, dark world.  But at that moment it didn’t seem that way, it almost seemed like it was the first snowflake of the winter coming from the sky down to the cold ground.  Her perfect little eyes not seeing clearly yet, but everything that she can see seemed, so real, so true, so loving.  Her arms and legs seemed almost like glass, fragile.  Her body was warm to the touch, but it was cold everywhere else.

                        The nurse looked at me with a smile and said, “It’s a girl.”

They then rolled us to the recovery room where all the new babies and their new mothers were.  The room was large room divided equally by curtains. The room was just big enough for my husband, me, and my newest member of the family.  It was so quiet except for the newly lively parents and the first baby’s cry of the new world.  Including my new daughter.  She kept crying and crying until I let my husband hold his new daughter and he said, “I’ll give yeah my credit card if yeah stop crying.”  Of course like any girl would, she stopped.

Then the nurse came and said, “And the name is?”

Oh, goodness the name I forgot all about the name. Okay, there was Bethlehem, Candy, Blane, or Brooke.  I looked over at my husband.  He gave me that look like “go ahead, name her. She’s a girl”.  He knew very well that I wanted to name her, because he got to name my other two son’s Bradley Michael who is nine and named after my father, Michael Volitich.  Blake Charles, who was six, was named after my husband’s father George Charles Schmitt.  So I went on thinking.  And before anyone else could breath again I said, “Brooke Noel Schmitt.”

            While in the recovery room my sister Judy peeked in and saw the little pink hat on her head and screamed out, “It’s a girl!” 

Almost immediately after she said that my two sons’, Brad and Blake, who were waiting outside the room started to cry.  They wanted a baby brother so much.  They wanted him to play baseball, basketball, and hockey, but now things were different they had to treat her with care and kindness.  So they went ahead and bought her Michael Jorden socks for her tiny little feet.  They still thought that they would teach her everything there is to know about any sport that Brad and Blake were interested in.

I was so relieved; I always wanted a little girl with blond hair and loved to shop.  And that is what I got.