Our move to Nicki Drive was chaotic. All of our old neighbors and my family packed up everything as quickly as they could and moved us. Anything not necessary right away was stacked in the basement while we shuffled kids in an attempt to let everyone sleep as much as they could with a newborn baby who pretty much cried nonstop.
We had to take out a bridge loan because our house on Bradford lane had not sold and that added a lot of pressure. My husband's escape was to work as much overtime as possible even though he didn't get overtime pay. It was still a relief for him to get away from the chaos. I tried to juggle two babies under two and a child who needed lots of extra attention in order to thrive as well as unpack. Eventually we just got rid of anything left in packing crates after two years.
The old house flooded for the first time ever after we moved out and there was that to deal with, as well as a yard to maintain at both houses. Our routine became struggle through the week then go to my parent's house for the weekend for some help. We didn't have any pets which was a blessing, but then Becky's class visited the pet store and everyone got a token for a free goldfish. Of course a free goldfish means you need to buy a goldfish bowl and gravel and food and cute little things for the fishy to play with. The goldfish died a week later and Becky was devastated.
My sister suggested that the water we used to clean the bowl had not set long enough. She said the solution was simple. Just buy another bowl and have it waiting, so we did, along with another goldfish. That goldfish died overnight for reasons no one will ever know, so it was back to the pet store again. This time we bought two goldfish so they would have "someone to play" with and all seemed well.
One Sunday afternoon, while we were at my parent's house the realtor called. She had a buyer! It was a few days before our bridge loan became due along with a huge interest payment so we were ecstatic. She asked us to come back right away so we could get all the paperwork done. We threw everyone and everything into the car and drove back home. By the time we arrived the baby was wailing for a bottle. I had stopped breast feeding and we did not have any bottles made up in the car. We opened the door to our home and were instantly assaulted by a horrible smell. Apparently the goldfish must have died moments after we left. They were floating belly up and turning white.
We had a new thing called a microwave we had never really used and I thought, "No problem, I'll just the pop the baby bottle in there and warm it up." I didn't know to leave the top unscrewed. It exploded in the microwave. The baby did not understand any of this. He was hungry and crying inconsolably as I quickly peeled nipple parts off the walls of the microwave, made up another Playtex nurser and put it in. The microwave dinged. The realtor waltzed into my kitchen wearing a lovely navy blue suit and as I turned toward her I burped the bottom of the bottle bag like I always did just before giving it to the baby. Only this time the lid was still loose and the Enfamil with iron shot all over the realtor.
In the end she was amazing. She sat there, covered in smelly baby formula, beside the rotting fish, and fed the baby while we filled out all the papers. Our house was sold!
The next two years were hard. I exhausted every person who had been willing to babysit. Even the church nursery refused to take the baby because when separated from his siblings and me he screamed with the gusto of any young animal separated from its mother and waiting to be found. Becky finished a second year of kindergarten and in first grade her teacher recognized her need for extra help. She was tested and began to settle into a learning disability class. We had teachers in school all year and tutors in the summer, plus everyone in our family worked with her for much of every evening after school. Her first and second grade teachers became so close we vacationed with them after that. We would camp with them and some of the other teachers and all their children for a week or so in the summer. We even all signed our children up for swimming lessons at Ash Park at the same time so we could have a picnic lunch together and swim all afternoon. We took turns making different parts of the lunch every day.
Bobby was very sick when he was about nine months old. He ended up in a tent in the hospital and it was scary. I stayed with him all day and his father stayed with him at night. Judy would watch Jimmy while I was at the hospital. She was potty training her daughter, Linda, and every time Linda used the potty she gave her a chocolate chip. Jimmy, although younger loved the chocolate chips and was well on his way to potty training right away. Except if he was busy and couldn't be bothered.
When Bobby was two his father read a book, Potty Training in a Day, and decided he would stay home and do this if I would take the other children and leave. I did. It worked, but it left Bobby slightly crazed for a couple of years. He was always dry, but he would suddenly leap up screaming, "Potty, potty, potty, potty!" And we would have to grab him and run for the nearest potty.
Jimmy went to Tiny Tots at the YWCA for a year when he was about two. Their only prerequisite was that he be potty trained and he was. He was also so cute. He had a tiny pair of jeans and a polo shirt, but he was so little he couldn't even reach the doorknob! He started nursery school at Noah's Ark Preschool just before he turned three. It was at the Lutheran church, but was non-denominational and my neighbor, and best friend at the time, was one of the teachers.
During that time period I still tried to put the boys down for a nap in the afternoon. One day I had jumped in for a quick shower when I had a funny feeling. Maybe I heard something, I don't know, but when I got out of the shower the boys were not in their beds! I found them in the garage. In the car! Jimmy was turning the key and telling Bobby to push the peddle. We no longer relied on baby proof doorknobs after that. We installed hook and eye latches at the top of every door leading out or to the basement. Another time shortly after Easter I found the boys playing on top of their bunkbeds. They were chattering away and playing quite nicely when I noticed a raw egg on their red carpet. On closer inspection they had a Fisher Price barn silo full of water with all the leftover egg dye pills in it. They also had a carton of raw eggs. That day I tied the legs of their little table and chairs to the register so they couldn't use them to climb. Eventually they just learned to climb the drawer handles, but every step they had to make gave me a few extra seconds to keep up with them.
Becky rode a bus to school and I bought a twin stroller called the limousine so we could walk her down to the stop. It had two seats facing each other, so it wasn't wide like other twin strollers and both seats could recline. Plus the sun shades could be adjusted however I needed them. The babies, as we called them, were a couple of characters who quickly learned to work together. I ended up buying harnesses that zipped up the back. I used these both in the stroller and in grocery carts at the store. I never really used them like leashes at the mall because I had the stroller, but one time I made the mistake of letting them out of the stroller while Christmas shopping for my dad.
I turned around and they were gone! Panicked, I ran all over Bergners looking for them before going out into the mall. There, in the far off distance I saw a woman holding Bobby's hand and walking towards me, but I still couldn't find Jimmy. I ran into our priest and he began helping me look. We checked everywhere we could think of. I didn't want to announce it over the mall speaker system because that was like telling child molesters there was a child available, but we were almost ready to do that when I saw him coming out of Sears with an older woman. They were chatting away and heading towards Roland's department store. When I caught up with them she told me she had asked him his name. (Now he knew his name, address and phone number well before he turned three,) but he thought it would be funny to fool her so he gave her all fake information. When she asked if his mommy worked here he pointed at the nearest store, Rolands and when she asked if he was Jimmy Williams he said yes! My life with a very bright and creative child was just starting.
After that I tried to do all my shopping without them along, but that was not always possible at the grocery store. By using the harnesses I could keep them in the basket, one in the baby seat and one in the cart below and that worked pretty well except for the day I reached in to unload the groceries at the check out only to discover Jimmy had greased everything with oleo!
That was the same year I was home alone when the boys were taking a bath. I could always see them and the bathroom was right off the kitchen, so I didn't think anything about it when I had to take Bobby out of the tub and into the kitchen to give him some medicine. I let Jimmy play a little longer. They loved baths so much. I was just rinsing off the medicine spoon when Jimmy stepped out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his neck. "You better look at this Mommy." That was all he said and he said it so calmly I was not prepared for what I saw. There was a two inch gaping smiling hole under his chin! It looked like someone had slit his throat. I could have laid my finger in that hole and I could see stringy white cords in it. I sat him on the kitchen counter and poured hydrogen peroxide in it, then I made butterflies out of tape and taped it shut. I didn't have a car and my husband did not answer his phone at the office that night. The next day I took him to see our pediatrician who patted me on the shoulder and said, "Good job mama." It was months later before he revealed to my mother that he had been trying to slide down the back of the tub and fell out onto the plastic toy crate on the bathroom floor.
When it was Jimmy's turn to go to kindergarten evaluation he refused to let them put a name tag on him, stating boldly that if they wanted to know his name, he would tell them. They were no fools. They patted him on the back and said fine as they placed his name tag on the back of his shirt. Kindergarten started and he was easily the youngest child in the class because he had a late September birthday. Some of the children were nearly a year older than he was and a few were already reading quite well, including his new best friend Jason, But when reading finally clicked for him he was reading Hop On Pop, by Dr. Seuss and he read it on the couch and on the hamper. He read it in his bed and even in the bathroom under the vanity. He read it in in the backyard and on the screened in porch. He was truly hooked on reading.
Becky meanwhile was starting to read more too. She enjoyed our summers where we all went to the library in Normal and read books to gain prizes like free bowling, or free mini golf, free ice cream, or whatever. Sometimes she would read to the boys and one day I heard her reading a Little House on the Prairie book to them. She said, with great excitement, "They hopped in the boogie and drove away!" Later I asked her what she thought a boogie was and she just shrugged. Obviously whatever it was, she was content that people could hop into it and drive away! And so were the boys.
Bobby did not go to Tiny Tots and he did not take infant swimming lessons like Jimmy did. Jimmy was a fish, but Bobby had ear infections like I did as a child. Still, by four he was taking lessons at the pool all summer with the other kids. His philosophy as a young child seemed to be anything was okay as long as I was there and so were his siblings. I began teaching three and four year old Sunday School and he was right there with everyone else long before he was two. He simply followed along. He did the same when they were playing in the neighborhood too. He learned to roller skate on plastic skates while neighborhood girls held him up and he learned to ride a two wheeler mostly on his own using the tiny bike Jimmy and Becky had both used. This only backfired once. They were all playing baseball in the front yard and Bobby ran up behind them just as someone swung a metal bat right into his head! He had a black eye and later we discovered he had knocked a front tooth loose, but he seemed perfectly fine He played the rest of the afternoon. Then a few days later he fell off the bicycle and skinned the whole side of his face. We were right in front of the Weight Watcher Lady's house and she ran out with a washrag. He really looked terrible -- like a battered child with a bruised and bloody face and swollen eye.
One of my friends at the pool, who had kids the same ages as mine, was the wife of a neurosurgeon. I know she suspected child abuse, but she invited the boys to spend the night with her boys and they told me how her husband held up two fingers and asked Bobby what he saw. They thought that was funny. They said he asked lots of silly questions and I guess he was satisfied because they didn't say a word when I picked the boys up the next day. Almost a year later he woke up with a big purple swelling on the top of his front gums. Evidently that tooth that was hit had abscessed, so we took him to a pediatric dental surgeon who put him in a tiny koala hospital robe and instantly put him out with gas the moment we handed him over. It was taken care of without any real trauma at all. He went to work with his daddy afterwards and ate a hog dog!
Once Bobby was in first grade I was asked to come work at Noah's Ark as a watcher for a child who was very violent. Eventually he left, but then they asked me to stay on and work with three children from one babysitter who were pretty nonverbal. Eventually this worked into me becoming an assistant preschool teacher. It was usually about six hours a week the first couple of years and as much as twenty-one later on, but it gave me time to volunteer at my children's schools in the library or nurse's office and to be room mother's for all three. It also let me take off if I went on a field trip with the school.
These early years were rich and fulfilling. Their dad joined Indian Guides with them and they began their first forays out into the world of men.
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