As we waited for Jenny to come into this world we should have known she would do it when she was ready.
We thought she was coming two weeks before she really came into the world. The false alarm helped me get into trouble at the hospital. When we went to the hospital room the nurse gave Joyce a bunch of instructions and then turned to me and said, "Mr. Haws we have a very important job for you...you are going to watch the fetal heart monitor and let us know if there is any major fluctuations." Now I knew a little bit about these machines because they have them in all the hospital television shows, so I sat down and focused all my attention to my assignment because the nurse said it was important. The heart rate would jump just a little from 163 to 165 and I was doing good focusing on the meter. But after about 20 minutes the meter went from 165 to 0 and I knew what I had to do. So I jumped up and ran out of the room and down the hall screaming, "The baby's dead...the baby's dead." Before the nurses could catch me and calm me down I had all the new mothers to-be on the floor terrified. I still say they should have explained to me that when the baby moves sometimes it takes a few seconds for the machine to find the heart beat and start recording again.
Then there was her name. We (by that I mean Joyce and her Mother) decided we would only give her a first name which would be Jeannette (after my Mother "Iris Jeanette" and my Grandma Fisher "Nellie Jeanette." But during the 6 weeks from birth to her blessing everyone started calling her Jenny. That shouldn't have been a problem except when I got up to give her her name and blessing I named her "Jenny Jeanette." Now Joyce wasn't too upset with that except she had to do a lot of paper work to get her legal name changed, but if looks could kill Grandma Warren was planning my funeral that afternoon. And for years she never let me forget how stupid I was and what kind of father couldn't remember his child's name. To be honest she was kind of right 24 years later when a 12 year old Mikey opened up his new triple combination set of scriptures, he looked at the name on the front and then read it for all to hear, "Michael John Haws?" He looked at me and said, "Dad my name is Michael Kent Haws." I could feel my ears burning from what Grandma Warren was screaming (if they allow that in Heaven).
But back to Jenny...she was everything we had hoped for and before we knew it she had taken over. She didn't like to go to sleep early and so she didn't. She didn't like to eat in Restaurants and so one of us walked her while the other ate fast so they could take their turn. To be honest is wasn't so bad because everyone would comment what a beautiful little girl she was.
When Mindy was born it didn't take her long to fall in line and do exactly what Jenny said. A good example of Jenny's control was Mindy's name. We had decided to name her Emily until one day just before Mindy was born Jenny said very matter of factly, "NO EMILY...MINDY!"
She grew up very fast and we have enjoyed almost every minute of it.
