Evening fell with an ominous silence. Neither bird nor squirrel could be heard, all having returned to their homes to wait out the coming storm. As dusk turned to night, clouds rolled in. The silence broke as the clouds could hold no more. Raindrops as big as a fist pounded on the roofs and the trees wailed in agony as gusts of wind ripped at their branches. It was time.
Be it the weather or the bright lights of the hospital, though she had wanted to come out, she was now hesitant. Night became day. The storm of the night before slinked away on the tails of the night, and with dawn the sun won the war. Birds chirped in the warm summer morning. It was in this early morning light that she finally came.
1986 Kate @ 2 weeks old
Kate E. Brindal Poirier was born.
She was a cheerful baby, an easy baby. Everyone thought she was sweet. Five days after she was born, she smiled for the first time. A few days later, she slept through the night. Easy going yet curious, Kate won her way into everyone’s hearts.
The day of her christening was the hottest day of the year. The sun beat down on the hot pavement the air thick with rising heat. Born into the summer heat, Kate did not mind. Though she was wearing a thick linen dress with a long trail from the early 19th century—her great-grandmother was also christened in it—she still managed to smile the morning away! She was also able to completely saturate the dress with sweat! Never before had her mother seen such a sweaty baby. Kate’s already thick black hair was pasted to her forehead, stands clinging together, bound by sweat. After the christening, something had to be done! It was far too hot to stay in the upstairs bedroom, where Kate’s bath was. Her mother had no desire to stand in the heat up there. She carried the bath downstairs, and brought it out into the backyard where she filled it with water. There was a small platform in the center of the tub for baby Kate to sit on, where here head would not go under water. This platform was on a spring, and if wriggled and jiggled when Kate was placed onto it. As soon as that platform bounced, Kate started to chuckle and laugh. Louder and louder, every time the platform bounced, Kate would giggle with delight. That was the first time she laughed.
1986 December Kate as a superstar
*****
Kate was an easy going baby. She slept through the night at only a month old, and never stopped. She smiled far more than she cried. She loved to sit and watch, and she loved to move around. She started trying to walk when she was only 6 months old…but she was not allowed to. Each time she tried to stand and walk, her mother would push her down.
“Why are you doing that?” her father asked.
“Because she’s too stupid to walk right now!” her mother answered. Her sister, Sarah, had started trying to walk at around the same age. Her parents learned this lesson about babies not being smart enough to walk when they are that young the hard way. Sarah would walk into walls, get distracted by things and fall down, and walking proved to be more of a danger to a too-young baby than anything else. Kate’s mother did not want to go through this again!
“A few more months…then we will let her walk!”
*****
1987 March: "OMG I'm in a BOX!!"
Finally allowed to walk, Kate certainly did get into everything she possibly could! Being busy was what she did best, and did it ever make her smile! But whatever toys were around, nothing could compare to what was in the backyard. Kate loved to be in the swimming pool. The song Swimming, Swimming is about her:
Swimming, swimming in the swimming pool,
When days are hot
When days are cold
in the swimming pool.
Breaststroke
Sidestroke
Fancy diving too?
Don’t you wish you never had
1988 July in my pool
Anything else to do?
Luckily, at one year old, Kate didn’t ever have anything else to do! It didn’t matter what time of year it was, what the temperature was, or what the weather was like—Kate wanted to be in the swimming pool. Rain or shine. She started going into the pool when she was only a few months old. When she learned to walk, unfortunately, her mother’s concerns were right: she was too stupid to be walking!
Kate would walk right into the swimming pool, whenever she could. Clothes on, boots on, it didn’t matter! All she wanted was to be in the water. It got to the point where she wasn’t even allowed into the backyard without her water wings on, because she would find a way into that pool, no matter what! One chilly September morning when Kate was two or three years old, a cold breeze blew threw the leaves, loosening them from their branches and throwing them to the ground. With the weather only getting colder and the trees spattering the lawn with leaves, it was time to rake.
1987 May: "Yummmmm chocolate!"
Kate’s parents brought her into the backyard to help with the raking. Decked out in a new jean jacket and fancy-shmancy robber boots, Kate was ready for fall! Or so her parents thought… Distracted by putting leaves into bags for just a moment, Kate found the opportunity to wander off. When her parents noticed that she had dropped her rake, they looked around…and there she was, about to step into the swimming pool—clothes, boots and all! Someone had forgotten to close of the ladder to the deck in the kerfuffle of closing the pool, and Kate had made her way up to the deck! Had her parent noticed a moment later, she would have been cannon-balling into the chilly fall water! Yet even in a bathing suit Kate would have gone into the pool. Her mother decided that she must be part polar bear, since she would never shy from the cold water of the unheated pool, spring or fall! It was only the ice of the winter that would stop her from being in her pool!
*****
“Tut tut, it looks like rain!” Christopher Robin could be heard saying for the thousandth time. Thousandth time or not, Kate laughed as if it was the first time she had heard it. Kate got an
1988 Tut tut, it looks like rain!
umbrella for her second birthday that year. It was the greatest toy she had ever received—other than the swimming pool of course. For weeks that summer, she walked around repeating Christopher Robin’s infamous phrase:
“Tut tut, it looks like rain!” Kate exclaimed excitedly, twirling her umbrella above her head—inside.
Then, she burst into song!
“I’m just a little black rain cloud
Hovering under the honey tree
I’m just a little black rain cloud
Pay no attention to little me
Everyone knows that a rain cloud
Never eats honey, no, not a nip
I’m just floating around over the ground
Wondering where I will drip”
1990 A new dress
This would be the start of the strange gifts that Kate would receive, far superior to the toys that normal children received. The next birthday, Kate sat, and ungraciously opened one toy after the next. She would pick up a parcel, and tear off pretty paper covered in Carebears and Rainbow Bright.
“Toy. Toy. Toy.” She said as she opened each and then passed it aside. Then came another parcel. It was softer than the others. She looked at her mother curiously, and fervently tore off the paper to expose…
“OVERALLS!!!!” She excitedly held the overall against her, then tried them on over her party dress. She then fawned over several articles of clothing that she received, being far more interested in this than any of the toys!
*****
1989 December: Bushwoolie
“Look at me! Look at me! I’m a bushwoolie!” Kate shouted as she removed her shirt and pulled her pyjama pants up over her shoulders. She was
often a bushwoolie at the age of three—although becoming one was easier in some pyjamas than others. The blue ones worked best. Kate hikes up
her pants, with her hands inside, and ran around being a bushwoolie. Why did having her hands and shoulders in her pants make her a bushwoolie? That much is unclear, especially because bushwoolies have arms. However, in this state, Kate gained all of the powers of a bushwoolie, which
Bushwoolies and Muck
included walking into walls and having muck flung at her. The important part of being a bushwoolie is that it allowed her to take part in one of her favourite movies, the My Little Pony movie.
*****