October 6, 2008 Happy Birthday Marci!

WARNING: long post full of sappy motherly love words!

11 years ago I gave birth to a beautiful little girl. 6 pounds 12 ounces. I was sitting in my living on conference Sunday watching Money Pit in between sessions. I started having contractions... or at least what I thought were contractions. I told Cyrus to start timing them because that is what we were told to do in the prenatal class. First babies are an interesting thing... you don't have a clue what you are in for. But with every twinge I felt like I needed to run to the hospital. I really had no idea what to expect. The night before we went in thinking it was time... I hope all first time moms do that at least once. It's pretty sad when they send you home when all you want is that baby to be OUT. So, with the consistent contractions I assumed it was time. The first call I make was to my mother of course. She said, "get to the hospital quick before you can't get an epidural!" So, I called the hospital and they said to come in and get checked. Before I walked out the door I had to at least put one curl in my hair (how vain of me!) and put some makeup on. Two days earlier I had gotten a perm so the hair was looking pretty crazy. Anyway... I got to the hospital and I was only a 3. They almost sent me home but they monitored me for an hour and the doctor said, "go ahead, let her stay!" So, I got the epidural and all was well. She was born about 4 hours later at 1:00 in the morning. My mother was there waiting outside and as soon as she was born she came in to see my beautiful little girl. What an amazing moment. Cyrus and I couldn't have been happier. This little girl was now part of our little family!

Marci is a wonderful example to her older siblings. As far as I can remember, Marci has been very obedient. I remember once when she was probably 14 months old she grabbed a few eggs out of the fridge and took them and dropped them on the living room on the carpet. A mothers first reaction (at least mine) was "no, no..." I was not very happy with my little baby. I even think I slapped her hand. She looked up at me like "I'm so sorry, let me fix it!" She didn't know how to talk but she immediately bent over and started cleaning up the eggs. She has always been obedient and had the desire to please everyone. Another instance I remember was around the same time we had a coffee table in our house and she loved to climb on it and stand on it. We were teaching her to stay off and she was learning. I know she was tempted but we could just say, "Marci." and she would turn away and do something else. Well, one day I climbed up on the table to fix a light bulb and as soon as I hopped off she was so pleased. She went right up to that table and climbed up on it... it was so funny. Man, as adults we have to be so careful with what we tell our kids they can't do and then we turn around and do it ourselves! "practice what you preach!"

She has also been quite shy. Even when she was a baby she did not like strangers to come near her. She was very much attached to her mother. Even when people would come to the house she would start to cry. My mother called her a little watch dog. BUT... I think she has always had the desire to overcome that. When she was in kindergarten I remember going to her classroom and helping out. She would hardly speak to another soul. At nights we had been reading the "little engine that could". Didn't we all love that as children. One day she came home from Kindergarten so pleased with herself. During art that day she had to paint something and she was nervous about it. She came home and said "mom, in my head I just kept saying 'I think I can, I think I can' and I did it! Even a few kids told me that MY painting was the best!"

Another instance where Marci overcame her shyness out of obedience was when she was asked to give a talk during the primary program. She was a little Sunbeam (not even 4 yet!), and a young one at that. She was asked to give a talk on "our bodies are temples" I can almost remember the whole thing:

My name is Marci Price, I'm going to talk about bodies are temples. I'm going to read in the scriptures. "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? For the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are." (1 cor 3:16)
I will keep my body holy by eating and drinking good food, by reading the scriptures and?????. In the name of Jesus Christ Amen.

Cyrus and I sat in the audience about three rows back right smack dab in the middle. I told her that if she got scared, to just look at me. Right after she said her name with no help from a leader, the whole audience let out a chuckle. This sort of threw her off, she looked at me and continued with all the confidence in the world. (yes, we had worked on this for DAYS, if not weeks). We were so proud of our little 3 year old girl giving her first talk in Sacrament meeting with no help! I can't even imagine my 4 year old doing this today... not a chance... there is just something about that first child, parents expect so much from them! I'm so grateful Marci is happy and obedient about it all. She truly does live up to those things that are expected of her.

Well, I could probably go on and on about my marci, I will probably add more later but I am pleased to say that she is becoming a beautiful young lady. She is agreeable, she's outgrowing her shyness (she even ran for treasurer this year and came home, "well, I tried my best and I had fun", she didn't win) she can laugh at herself. For instance she was coming down the stairs the other day and she fell about half way down and got up laughing "I'm okay". She makes the best of any situation. She is also a wonderful help to me. She is now my babysitter and a quite cheap one for that matter. We went to Saturday's stake conference the other night and she watched the kids till 10:30 (she loved it because she got to stay up late and play Indian Jones lego WII all by herself after she put kids in bed) I know I can trust her. I hope our relationship is always this good... She's a fun one to have around. Love you marci and thank you for being so good despite my downfalls!