Mommy’s Piggy Tales…When I was little

This Meme started last week, it is a 15 week project.  The object is to write a story each week about a different period of time from our childhood.  I am writing this for my children.  Last week I told the story of my birth. This week, I’ll be telling you about the year I started Kindergarten.  It was a very exciting year!

When I was a little girl, Gramma and I lived by ourselves in a small house. There was a little kitchen that was bright yellow and a little living room that was bright orange.  In the living room we had an upright piano with my fishtank on top.  We had a black and white television, but we almost never watched TV.

This picture is from Christmas 1970, I had just turned 4.  Gramma's room was a bright shade of lavendar and a stairway led from Gramma's room up to my room.  My room was PINK and I loved it very much.  Every other weekend, my Daddy would come to pick me up and take me to my MomMom's house to spend the weekend with him. During the week, Gramma worked and I went to a baby sitter. On the weekend that I was home with Gramma, I played outside in our fenced yard. I was lonely most of the time and I would BEG Gramma to please go to the store and buy me a baby brother or sister. I didn't understand where babies came from and since all the STUFF for babies was sold at the store I thought that we should be able to buy a baby at the store too. We moved several times when I was 5 and I don't remember where we lived when I started kindergarten.

When I was almost 6, I started kindergarten and I found out that Gramma was going to have a baby! I was very excited! I kept asking when the baby was going to get here and she kept telling me “in a few months”.  One day in early March Gramma was getting ready to take me to buy a new pair of shoes.  First she had to go to the bathroom.  When she came out of the bathroom she looked like she wasn’t feeling well and she told me that we weren’t going to be able to go shoe shopping that day.  She had to go to the Dr.  She took me to one of her friend’s houses.  There were a lot of kids and I really liked playing with them, but on this day I was worried.  Later that night my Grandmother came and picked me up.  She told me that I had a new baby brother and I was going to come stay with her and my Great Grandmother for a few days while my Mom and my new baby brother were in the hospital.

Great Grandmother was one of the oldest people in our family when I was little and she had some strange ideas.  The worst part for me about staying with her was that she thought that even though I was SIX I might wet the bed and so she made me sleep on a plastic pad.  I couldn’t remember having EVER wet the bed and I was very upset that she didn’t believe I was big enough to sleep without plastic under me.

After a few days, my Grandmother took me to the hospital to see Gramma.  At that time, kids, even the sister of the baby, were not allowed to visit.  My Grandmother had to take me around the outside of the building to the window of Gramma’s hospital room.  One of Gramma’s friends opened the window and I got to see her for just a few minutes, but I didn’t get to see my baby brother.  A couple days later,  Gramma was able to come home. My brother had to stay in the hospital for another day because he had been born early and they wanted to make sure he was ready to leave the hospital.  Your Uncle Allan was born 6 weeks early and only weighed about 4 1/2 lbs.  He had ended up being born in the Dr’s office when Gramma went to be checked out...he was in a BIG hurry to be born.  He was so tiny that his whole head fit inside the palm of Gramma’s hand.  This was 1973 and at that time they didn’t have a lot of the technology they have today for babies who are born early.  Fortunately, he was very strong and didn’t have any medical problems from being born so early.  On the day that he came home, I finally got to hold him.  I was very happy to finally have a baby of our own! This picture is of my Mom , my brother and I from Easter 1973.  Allan is only a few weeks old.

This picture is from one of those photo booths. I am 7 and Allan is about 6 months old.