Little Women

After my second daughter was born, I began to develop what I call my Little Women Complex--a desire to have four girls like the ones in Louisa May Alcott's semi-autobiographical novel. After the third one, I began to wish that I had started out naming them Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. Although I never got that fourth daughter, I frequently commented to the girls that they were similar in birth order and personality to the Little Women brood. Danielle was Meg--the oldest, sweet and beautiful. Lydia, the next, was Jo--the writer, feisty, gangly until she grew into her height. Maura, I would say, was the perfect combination of Alcott's third sister, Beth--the peacemaker, the musician, the pet of the family--and Amy, the beautiful, the brat, the impetuous youngest sister.
"I don't want to be Beth," Maura would say, "She's the one that dies."
"That's okay," I would reassure her, "You won't be like her in that respect. You'll be like Amy, who got to travel the world."