Recently I've been feeling a little bit nostalgic. Maybe it's because my children are grown and so many of their friends are starting to get married and have children of their own. (Disclaimer: I am in NO hurry for my own children to do the same- thanks guys!)
Anyway, it was only a few weeks ago that my daughter asked me to regale some friends with an old anecdote about my son when he was three, which commenced the nostalgia and all systems were a go for Reminiscence 2012.
Various memories popped into my brain. Like the time one of my nieces set fire to the microwave oven trying to make S'mores. Apparently it is unnecessary to cook the marshmallow on high for eight minutes. Who knew?
And then there was the time my sister came home to find her daughter (then two) lying in the middle of the living room floor in a sort of strung out position with her eyes closed. The conversation went like this:
My Sister: What are you doing?
My Niece: (Opening one eye to look at her mother) I'm a pink bird. (Eye closes.)
My Sister: Okay. Why are you lying there?
My Niece: (Eye opens again.) I'm a dead pink bird. (Eye closes again.)
Meet my niece, Wednesday Addams…
Or the time my son and one of his friends decided it might be nifty to go sledding. Indoors. Let me work out the equation for you:
Toy-box lid + staircase= two sad boys
The boys were roughly three and four at the time and probably spent a total of two minutes on their brilliant scheming. Criminal masterminds they weren't. They failed to take into account that the staircase split at a landing in the middle. This debacle ended with my son face-planted into the bookcase on the landing and wearing the toy-box lid as a hat, and his friend (upon the mean old parents putting an end to their dangerous activity) saying, "But Moooo-om, I was taking turns." Great job being fair and taking turns Skippy, but you see your friend right there, the one with his left knee behind his neck and his elbow jammed inside his ear? Odds are your turn won't fare much better…
And then there was the time my daughter (then three) decided to perform a striptease act at her brother's fifth birthday party. Let me just say, thank God for tights! As it turns out, tights aren't just a torture device for women, they actually prevent a toddler from streaking when you least expect it.
While all the party-goers were busily pinning the tail on the donkey, I caught my child in the kitchen, naked from the waist down, (with the exception of the blessed tights). Somehow she had managed to remove her panties past the tights, though to this day I still haven't figured out how. The girl could've been the next Houdini. Since she was determined to be completely undressed, it was the valiant struggle with the tights that allowed me to catch her in time to prevent her from popping out of the cake…
Here's one that will live in my mind forever: The finger.
My kids seemed to like to make it a competition to see who could get hurt the worst. I took semi-annual trips to the ER for stitches, broken bones, and a myriad of other injuries. And they took illnesses to all new, never seen before heights. If they got something (be it chicken pox, pneumonia, the flu, whatever) their little bodies had to perform some strange demented magic that put a twist on it so bizarre even the doctor would say, "What the heck is that?" Not what you want to hear from your pediatrician.
For example: the time my daughter had mono and she had to have an MRI because her neck and throat were so swollen the doctor thought it was crushing her larynx and impeding her ability to breathe. Really? Who gets an MRI for mono? The kid with the size 52 neck, that's who.
One of the most minor injuries which serves to substantiate my claim that my children are just flat out weird, was when my daughter jammed her finger playing basketball. Yup, jammed. That's it. That's all. Minor injury. No one's dying here.
It should have been that simple right?
Never is.
Anyone who knows my daughter knows about her 'freaky finger.' It was during the summer and we were having a cook-out. We had all had just finished eating and we were feeling fat, dumb, and happy. The kids were out front playing basketball and I was busy cleaning up the remnants of the meal.
Suddenly my daughter came up to me. She was holding one hand inside the other and was saying, "I can't make it go back."
Naturally I was confused. "Make what go back?"
"My finger. I tried and I can't make it go back."
Confusion multiplied. Let me explain:
The child was calm. She was not crying. She was not exhibiting any signs of pain. She was speaking as if she were talking about something as mundane as the weather. I was in NO way prepared for what happened next.
She showed me her hand.
I almost showed her my dinner.
Her finger, one that used to (operative words here- USED TO) be gloriously straight and used to bend at three points, all knuckles turning INTO her hand, was now shaped like a lightning bolt and was a lot shorter than I had remembered it being. The middle knuckle was bent sort of backwards and kind of folded over on itself. In the WRONG direction. The top knuckle was doing the same thing.
Have you ever seen those cartoons where the character (think Tom and Jerry or Wile E. Coyote) slams their fingers in a door and they come out all crumpled? That's what it looked like. Funny in a cartoon. Not so funny in real life.
One other thing I want to add: if my finger (or any other part of my body) ever looks like THAT- the ENTIRE world will know about it. There will be no calm, "I can't make it go back." I will be screaming bloody murder for all the world to hear. Before I pass out. And vomit on myself. Just sayin'.
After months of physical therapy (seriously- physical therapy for a finger- I swear to you, I had to take the child in a few times a week to watch her do finger 'exercises') and several specially made finger 'casts', her finger still does this freaky thing where she bends all her knuckles backwards. And she does it every opportunity she gets.
Consider that when you dream about having a darling baby girl you can dress up in little frilly pink dresses.
And now for the story my daughter wanted me to tell- drum-roll please…
It was circa 1993; my son was three and my daughter was a year old. The two of them were upstairs playing in their rooms while I was cleaning up whatever havoc they had already wreaked downstairs. Suddenly I heard the distinct sound of my son singing. Fervently. Passionately. With much ardor.
Now this caught my attention for two reasons. #1- my son did not sing. Ever. For any reason. Not so much as crooning 'Happy Birthday' at a birthday party. And #2- he was singing a love song with tremendous gusto.
Son: "And Iiiiiiiieeeeeeeiiiiiii wiw ahways wuv youuuuuuuuuuuu! Iiiiiiiii wiw ahways wuv youuuuuuu!"
(My spell check just LOVED that one. I think it melted.)
(Tangent Alert) The song was Dolly Parton's I Will Always Love You, made even more famous by Whitney Houston's remake which was playing nonstop on the radio that year. And the year before. And the year after. I pretty much learned to hate that song. (Though not nearly as much as, 'I believe that children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way…' Obviously Miss Houston had not experienced the toy-box lid debacle as of yet…)
Tangent over. Back to the subject. Son singing passionately:
Suddenly poignant images painted themselves in my mind; my darling three year old, possibly down on one knee, singing his heart out to his precious baby sister (who was the only one upstairs with him, aside from the dog).
Being the mother I was, I instantly grabbed the video camera and raced up the stairs. Now let me tell you, this was no easy effort. Let me bring you back to the Stone Age; this was a time when video cameras were not something that fit into the palm of your hand. Oh no, that would be too easy. Video cameras then were shoulder held apparatuses that made you look like you worked for CNN and required a sound man and a lighting engineer to follow you around.
So there I was, fifty pounds of video equipment stacked on my shoulder, racing up the stairs in an effort to capture this heartwarming scene on film. In seconds I had the camera running and snuck into my daughter's bedroom.
Upon entering the room I was flummoxed.
My daughter was busily setting her miniature table with plastic teacups and silverware in preparation for the tea party that was apparently about to begin. My son was not kneeling on the floor ala Cyrano de Bergerac; instead he was seated on her kitchenette, still singing with all the passion his little heart could hold, "And Iiiiiiiieeeeeiiiiii wiw ahways wuv youuuuuuuuu!"
To the Raggedy Andy doll he held out in front of him.
He loved his doll. Good to know.
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