Book appendix (part 4)

From an interview with my mother:


It was hard for me when you were born.  Baby number three is always hard because when there’s two there’s one for each parent, but when there are three it’s hard.  And you came so close to Jim.  And Jim was taking his sweet time getting potty trained, so I had both of you in diapers for like a year.  And that was before the disposable diapers were popular and they were expensive so we had cloth diapers and I had to wash them and hang them out on the line because we didn’t have a dryer.  So it seemed like that was my whole life was taking care of babies, changing diapers, washing them, hanging them out.  I think that was the time I went a little nutso.  I remember I just started freaking out sometime and dad had to call grandpa and have him come over and talk me out of it.  I don’t know, just the stress and everything probably piled up.  In those days I wasn’t very good about keeping on an even keel.  I’d let thing build up and build up and then just start flipping out.  

We thought you were perfectly healthy, but you had thrush at birth and the thrush got worse, which made you not want to nurse.  I would try to calm you down by nursing you.  You would just be upset and there was nothing we could do to get you to stop crying.  You would cry until you were exhausted and then sleep for a while.  So that was a very trying time.  Finally, I don’t remember how old you were until we finally took you into the doctor, and they checked you out and said you had thrush.  You had a herniated navel too, probably because you were crying so violently.  That was sad, my poor baby.  I just remember the family get together at the beach when you were crying and everyone was trying to be the one to hold you and calm you down but nobody could do it so I just took you and went away with you walking around the whole park.  I would sometimes just leave you in a room to cry.  There was nothing else to do.  I put you on your stomach on the water bed because you seemed to like it.  So you would cry and fuss, the waterbed would rock you and you would finally go to sleep.  In some ways I think that made us bond more because I was very emotionally involved with you and protective of you, wanting to fix what was wrong and wanting you to be better, happier and healthy.  So I think I was maybe a little extra attached to you.  Dad would be the one who would say, “Just put her in a room and shut the door.”  Because we lived in that little dinky house, so there wasn’t anywhere where you could escape the noise.  I wonder what Jim and Scott thought of that.  I don’t remember focusing on them at all, I was just so wrapped up in you.  Poor Jim, because he was just a little guy.  He probably got ignored a lot when this screaming baby came along and kicked him out of mama’s world.  

I can’t remember hardly anything about your childhood. I remember you drowning as a child.  I can’t remember who noticed you back there but then when I saw you, it seemed like you had let go of the boat.  But I just remembered feeling totally frantic and I remembered just having this sick feeling and praying that you would be ok.  It seems like we had to go down the river a little to be able to pull over to the side of the river.  I can’t remember how they called to get people to come help.  I ran up the beach, sick with worry.  I guess you just kind of came to and started breathing.  You seemed to be pretty much ok.  I mean kind of out of it a little, but I was just happy you were conscious and breathing and back with us.  

I remember when you had your appendix problem.  I always thought that I was pretty good at reading my kids, knowing what was wrong with them, but you were super hard to read.  And we had never had anything serious happen with the kids before, so this was a first for us. I didn’t really know or think there was something that was seriously wrong because you weren’t even acting serious until you developed a fever.  But when we went in there and it had ruptured and you were so sick, I was mad at myself for not having taken you in sooner.  But you were really good at being closed off, showing a brave front and going off and doing your thing and you didn’t really care if you were sick or let little pains get in the way.  You were just off doing yourself.  So I guess your common sense with your health wasn’t that great.  Because I remember you went and even played in a tournament with your appendix either ruptured or about to rupture.  So that was crazy.  I can’t even comprehend someone being able to do that.  

I remember you hated the hospital and always tried to get dad to eat your food, which wasn’t very hard.  And I remember he had to finish your breakfast that morning so you would get out of there and wanted to get out so bad.  And then you had to be in a wheelchair for like 5 days after.  And I remember you being at school and seeing how the kids were fawning over you and I realized that you had a lot of friends and people that cared about you.  And you seemed to be in pretty good spirits about the whole thing.  It’s not like you were like, “I’m in a wheelchair and this sucks.”  I think you were kind of enjoying a new experience.  But I think you were happy to get better—get back to your fast paced life.  You wouldn’t have lasted in a wheelchair that long for sure.