Girls – Fille Numéro Trois: Amanda Marie

The baby is always the baby. Amanda is my/our Baby daughter.

I remember that last pregnancy in 1991. I wondered, because we never found out, would this one be a boy? At that time, I really did not care and when Amanda was born I could not have been more happy. As January birthed a new year we would birth our final child, which would complete the family known as Underwood.

For me, this would be the end of the line. There would be no one to carry my name…now, to some that might be a big deal, and I have had a few days of wondering about that myself, but this child…WOW. She overcame all of that with her presence. She truly was the crown of our family.

We wondered if she might be born on my Mother’s birthday, January 16, but she arrived a day later, January 17. I asked and was granted the joy of attaching my Mother’s name (or a transliteration of it) to her. She would be Amanda Marie, thus preserving the chain of A’s (Andrea, Alexis, Amanda) and a family connection. My mother’s name is Maire.

Amanda was doted on by her sisters, parents and grandparents. She was well taken care of.

On her first family trip she visited NYC in the summer of 83. Two years later we were in Canada on another family vacation when, in Toronto, she got a tummy ache and lost her cookies as we were driving through China town. Forevermore that seat in that van would be known as ‘the throw-up seat’ and no one wanted to sit in it, despite its’ thorough cleaning.

Amanda is the true melting pot of our family… she is a little bit of everybody, not just her parents. She has Andrea and Alexis in her as well. I would say mostly Andrea. She is more Andrea than her mom or her dad. That is not entirely a compliment (sorry, Andrea.) Amanda is LOUD. Amanda is DEMONSTRATIVE. Amanda EMOTES. Amanda is like a ride at Six Flags – up, down, in, out, inverted, extroverted, exciting, scary, jerky, uneven and totally a girl!

No one quite knows if Amanda’s often exposed emotional responses are truly controlled or uncontrolled.  She seems to be able to cry almost on cue.  Once, when she was fourteen, I asked her “Amanda, why are you so emotional and cry over seemingly irrelevant issues?”  to which she retorted in very measured and calculated surety, “Dad, I am fourteen.  This is what teenage girls do!”  I don’t ask anymore.

Amanda has natural rhythm, artistry and charisma.  She, like me, does not exploit her gifts.  She, like me, does enough to get by.  She, like me, wants to be the center of attention.  She, like me, feels her feelings. At sixteen (and two-thirds) there is no clear direction, purpose, sense of being.  Amanda lives for now, not tomorrow.  I know that can change in a moment. I will never forget my senior year and the week after graduation.  The events of a short time changed my life.  April to June that year sealed my destiny.  I believe Amanda will follow the same course.  She may follow her mom into teaching or she may adopt Andrea’s penchant for caring for humanity on a global basis.  Like me, I think she will be an international more than a national.  She already wants to go to Africa for a couple of months to study and interact.

Although the youngest, she is the tallest, loudest, most demonstrative and her tears flow more than my own.  My Baby, Amanda.  She is it and no one can ever, ever, ever take her place.

~ by phil underwood on 17 October, 2008.