Of Family and Other Oddities

The idea that you can be married for more than half your life and still know very little about your wife seems to be only a surprise to me. My husband Michael, is perfectly content to discover "brand new" things about me every day.
"You don't like soda? We got married on your parents' anniversary? You don't really have green eyes? You wear contacts?" The list goes on.

He has definite opinions that are shared by... well, really nobody else.
For instance, major food companies apparently change the recipes to their products
to make them less tasty when they discover that he likes them.
Yes, he has that power.
But let's not go there.

Forget about names. He simply does not remember them.
One day he brought a couple of clients over to see our log home and to introduce them to me.
He began,"I kept calling them Betty and Bill because we know a Betty and Bill but now
I've finally got it right." He introduced the husband,"This is John."
He then turned to the wife,"And this is Bill."
I looked at Betty, "Do you prefer to be called Bill or William?"

I suppose it was cruel of me to have twins. Remembering names is hard enough
for my husband without also having to figure out which child is which.
We were on the boat when Erin and Julie were two. Erin and I were up in the cuddy cabin and Julie was up on the deck with her dad. We heard him speak to Julie but he called her Erin. Erin looked puzzled. Then he said something else to Julie and again referred to her as Erin. Erin looked at me, greatly concerned and asked, "Mama, is I Julie?"

Thirty plus years of using loud power tools in his construction business has affected Michael's hearing.
He refuses to admit it. This has led to some interesting exchanges.
One of my favorites is when I received a phone call from an aunt that I had not heard from
in years. We had a nice visit and afterward I attempted to tell my husband about it.
Me- "My aunt called from Oklahoma."
Him- "Really? What does she do?"
Me- "It's Mom's sister. She's been retired for years."
Him (shocked)- "She has Hepatitis C?"

I told that story to my co-workers and now in the office when someone doesn't hear something clearly they say,"Hepatitis C?"

Julie moments. There are many.
The time when she was four and came marching up to me, red-faced and angry at her sister.
"I wish we wasn't twins!"
"Why?" I asked.
"Because Erin's ugly!"

The day she made the observation after standing facing her sister," You know what? Erin's right hand is on her left arm and her left hand is on her right arm." Which prompted the indignant response from her sister, "Nuh-uh, Julie's the one with the backwards hands!"

The year we shopped for Christmas dresses and she said to Erin, "Let's get the same dress. Like we're twins."

The way she adored her baby sister and would sit for ages just holding Amy's
tiny hand and petting her head.

Julie was a very protective big sister.
One day when Amy was in kindergarten, she fell on the playground and skinned
her knees and elbow. The teacher scooped up and carried her to the office to
get cleaned up and bandaged.
A horrified Julie saw this from across the playground and was still very upset when she
told me about it after school.
"This," she said, " is exactly why I never wanted her to go to school!"

This is not to say, however, that she never got upset with her little sister. One day I heard her say to Amy in utter frustration, "You.. You... Word that I'm not allowed to say!"

A memory I love occurred while I was reading a book to the girls at bedtime.
I tend to use different voices and accents when I read aloud.
This particular book contained a British soldier and a southern cowboy and I read for so long that I must have lost focus a bit. I didn't realize until then how completely my nine year old had been drawn into the story.

Julie- "Wait... just then, did the British soldier sound southern to you?"
I looked at her. She was completely serious.
Me- "I didn't notice."
Julie- "Next time he talks, listen."
With great effort I kept my composure and next time the soldier spoke I deliberately used a southern accent.
Julie- "There, see? Did you hear it that time?"

You cannot buy a precious memory like that.
She is still very sweet and imaginative and I believe that is why she captures such
beauty and joy in her photography.

Erin was born with health complications. She and Julie each have one kidney and Erin's wasn't working properly. This required a surgery not long after her birth which led to a staph infection.Weighing only three pounds, she nearly died. At six months, open heart surgery was required, followed shortly after by a double hernia repair. Erin is a survivor.

She was not happy at all when I brought the baby home.
"Take that baby back to the hostible. She's crying and keeping me awake."
As Erin got older, she became a wonderful big sister.
She liked to share her worldly knowledge with Amy.
One such teaching opportunity occurred around age seven, at the breakfast table.
We were eating scrambled eggs.
Amy- "How do we know if eggs were going to be baby chicks?"
Erin- "If the chickens are married, the eggs will be chicks.
If the chickens aren't married, they will just be eggs."

This conversation occurred when the girls were in college.
Erin was showing me some pictures taken on her camera.
Pointing to a picture of herself she said,
"I look like Julie in this picture and it's really freaking me out."
I thought that was hilarious and I mentioned it to Julie.
Her response was, " I know what she means. I walked past a mirror once and I looked
just like Erin and it was very disturbing."
"Why?" I asked. She replied,"It was just so unexpected."
"You're identical twins!" I said, "How unexpected could it possibly be?"

Erin is moved to tears when people or animals touch her heart.
She is extremely compassionate toward elderly or handicapped people.
If they happen to be both...
We were stopped at a red light. A very frail, little white-haired man stepped into the crosswalk and began to make his way across the road. Erin, in the front seat began to well up. The man was having trouble walking and was moving very, very slowly. Erin was crying.
Then I realized that the little man was having so much difficulty because he had a crippled foot. Now Erin was sobbing. I was afraid by the time the man got all the way across, she would need to be hospitalized.

I believe this empathy is why she is drawn to becoming a therapist. One of her professors told her she has an extremely approachable aura.
She's warm. She makes people feel safe. They feel comfortable opening up to her.
She will be a blessing to others, as she has always been to me.

I went into premature labor with my last child as well. It began on a Sunday morning. The sermon happened to be about how we are expected to labor in the church.
When the pastor came to visit me in the hospital later that day, I told him he should really rethink his topics.
Fortunately, this time a course of medication and bed-rest allowed me to carry full term.
I told my mom that I wasn't allowed to go shopping so instead I was making her something. She was over-joyed with the little red-headed gift born on her birthday.

Amy has always had a unique way of thinking.
One day when she was two, I picked her up from my friend's house . She had
become very upset at snack time but wouldn't tell anyone why.
On the way home I asked what had happened. Amy said angrily, "She tried to feed me
bug legs!"
Look closely sometime at a slice of banana bread.
To this day, she will not eat it.

While waiting for her sisters' school bus one morning,
Amy- "I don't like Daddy, I only like Mommy."
Julie- "If there was no Daddy there would be no you."
Amy- "Yes there would, only I'd be a lot prettier."

In the backseat of the car with Julie.
Amy- "Remember when me and Erin went up in the loft?"
"Erin and "I", corrected Julie.
"No," said Amy thoughtfully," you wasn't there. Just me and Erin."

While in kindergarten she told us, "My teacher says there's no such thing as pigs."
Her sisters immediately began to argue that she was wrong. She stood her ground. Finally in exasperation, Julie asked, "If there's no such thing as pigs, where does ham come from?"
Amy didn't miss a beat." Hamsters," she replied.

When Amy was twelve, I told her it was our neighbor's birthday.
Amy-"How old is she?"
Me- "Seventy."
Amy was stunned. "I thought she was forty-nine! What is she, old-age challenged?"

She visited me at work one day when she was a teenager. A coworker had brought in an Easy Button. When you press it, a voice says,"That was easy." Amy on her cellphone to a friend said, "They keep pressing it and laughing hysterically." She rolled her eyes, "Old people humor!"

Her senior year of high school, Amy got a job in a retirement home. She served meals in the dining room, and afterward, washed dishes and mopped floors. I did ask where she had learned these skills, but I was very proud of her because she was taking care of others and enjoying it.
My church choir sang for the residents that Christmas. Amy, on winter break from college wanted to come and see all of her elderly people.
I was touched when I saw how delighted the residents were to see her.
They called out her name and came up to her in walkers and wheelchairs, giving her hugs and wanting to hear all about her college life. She was telling them how much she missed them and catching up on their lives. They were telling me how much they loved and missed her.
I saw the gentle, giving side of my daughter that night and that is a very special memory.

When I want to relax, to create order out of chaos, to add color and warmth to my surroundings, or to show my love to someone else, I crochet.
When I began at age 10, I actually learned from a step- by- step book. It was easy and fun. I remember my friends all received hand-made purses for Christmas that year.
Then my mom and I got into making crochet-topped hanging dishtowels. We had hilarious races to see who could get them finished the fastest. We gave them as gifts and sold them at craft sales.
If learning to crochet is something you have thought about but didn't know how to begin, let me recommend an easy to follow step-by-step guide- Click Here to Learn More
It's a great skill to pass on to your children or grandchildren as well. Enjoy!

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