A month following the birth of baby girl #3 I traveled to my mother's home for help through this transition from two to three children. My sister Gwen was recently returned from Peace Corps service in Sierra Leon, Africa and her friend Bill was visiting following a world tour. Another sister, Tara, was home from college. My mother had been looking for employment for many months. As soon as I arrived with my three little ones she was offered a job. So here I was, frantically child-proofing a house, cleaning, preparing meals for eight, and thinking, "I thought this was supposed to be a vacation for me!" I would be returning to work 30 hours a week with a 45 minute commute in another month so this time was very precious to me. Of course I enjoyed visiting my family and all hands were on deck to help out.
Let the reader not be alarmed at the rapid arrival of my children. I was thirty years old when I married and all my life had wanted nothing more than to be a wife and mother. I hoped to eventually be a mother to at least six children, as I had happily grown up the oldest of six children.
May 21, 1987 Laura is 3yrs, 2mo. Jasmine will be 2yrs in nine days. Margret is just over 1 month. It is Thursday in Grand Junction, CO.
It's been raining. Laura is parading around the cul-de-sac with an umbrella. Jasmine is tagging along banging two of Mom's pancake turners together. Rain won't stop their parade.
Now Laura has taken the turners to dig in the rocks and Jasmine is trying to make off with the umbrella.
The girls' favorite toy is Mom & Dad's shower. Even over the sandbox (whose charm seems to have completely worn off). They run in and out--banging the door, squeeling, screaming, laughing. WHAT is the attraction? The echo? The small space? The magnetic door?
Jasmine managed to flush my post-partum squeeze bottle dow the toilet (with Laura's help???). Of course it was a Friday night so we had to wait 'til Monday morning to call a plumber. Six extra people in the house (Bill, Gwenda, me, Tara, the girls) all having to march through Mom and Dad's bedroom every time we needed to use their toilet. Cost: $45 to remove it. The plumber said he wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't seen it.
Laura found a rock-hard wad of gum in the neighbor's driveway. She wanted to wash it off and chew it. I persuaded her to "plant" it to see if it would grow a gum tree, bush, or flower instead.
I wonder if I sang her the song, "Kookabura sits in the old gum tree" to help my argument?
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