Mother's Day Memories of Funny Things My Children Did

On this Mother’s Day, I am enjoying hearing about my newest one-year-old grandson in Chicago and all the fun things he does. It made me think of all the reasons I became a mother so many years ago. The one reason I NEVER THOUGHT about back then when I was trying to survive each day, was to gather the material to create a humorous booklet of all the funny things little children say and do. At the time my children’s antics may not have seemed very funny, but looking back now, they seem more hilarious.

My older children were approximately 18 months apart, so there were things they did that did not seem funny at the time. Most I have tried to block out, but unfortunately I have remembered some. My husband was in Vietnam when the third one was born, so for that year when I had one three-years-old, one 18-month–old and a new born, I was outnumbered and overwhelmed.

Marlowe, my oldest, was such a very curious child I am surprised he never became a scientist. He was always trying to find out what would happen to his siblings when he did things to him. Once he tried to put his sister into a dryer when he was three and she was 18-months-old, but he couldn’t get the dryer door shut, before I discovered them.

Marlowe was a good big brother, though. We lived in an upstairs apartment the year Ed was gone, and the washer and dryer were in the basement of the apartment next door. Marlowe had learned to open doors, so I had a flip lock on the outside door to the cement stairs going outside so the children couldn’t get out if I had to run downstairs for a minute. One day all of the children were asleep so I didn’t flip the lock as I ran down to the washer to change the wash. When I returned, Marlowe was dragging baby Marc by his feet down the cement stairs by his feet, hitting his head on every step.

“Mama, Marc woke up so I was bringing him to you,” he said. My heart stopped as I grabbed the baby, but he was okay.

One time when I had put three-year-old Marlowe in his room for doing something he shouldn't have, Marlowe was very mad! He knew I never wore shoes around the house so he slipped out of his room, found some tacks and spread them on the floor of his room. Then, hiding under his bed, he acted like he was hurt and screamed, “Help.” I came running of course, and stepped all over the tacks with my bare feet. It wasn’t nearly as funny as he thought it would be--for a long time afterwards!

Athena, my middle child, was hyperactive, and drove me crazy. She ran and somersaulted everywhere; I seldom saw her walk. She was very independent, and wouldn’t let anyone do anything for her, but insisted she alone could brush her hair, wash her face, pick out her clothes, get dressed, etc., etc. But she was so athletic that you never knew when she would somersault off the top of the couch in front of you like a clown, and “ta da” surprise you! It could be very funny. (It is no wonder she later became such a good gymnast.)

She loved to climb and get into everything—there wasn’t anything she couldn’t climb over. One day she wanted to get out of her crib and I didn't get her out as fast as she thought I should. So she decided to climb out herself--right over the rail. However, as she climbed over the top, she let go and fell straight backwards. She hit her head on the floor, and gave herself a concussion. But did that stop her? No, she was right back the very next day, trying to climb over the crib rails, or up onto the top bunk.

Eventually my husband returned from Vietnam, and we moved to El Paso, Texas where Ed helped me with my three little ones and I wasn’t quite as overwhelmed. But they were still a handful.

Athena was a very good mother to her younger brother, Marc, and took good care of him, even if she got bossy at times. When he was little and get upset when I left him with a babysitter or at the base nursery, Athena would put her arm around him and tell him I’d big right back and she’d take care of him until I would get back.

Marc was very adventurous. Because he thought he was as old as his siblings, he thought he could do everything they could do, and often would get stranded when he couldn’t. Even when he was under a year old, he’d follow them by climbing onto chairs, tables, beds, and couches and usually get off them by himself, too. But if he couldn’t get off them safely, he’d stand and scream until someone helped him off. He loved to explore how things worked and his favorite thing to make work at a year of age was twirling the knobs on the stereo and TV to turn it off and on and adjust the sound, channel, color, etc.

He was just as audacious in his culinary explorations. At eighteen months of age he was out helping Ed work on the car when he drank motor oil and was rushed to the hospital where they x-rayed him and rechecked and rechecked him. They could smell the oil on his breath even two hours later, but they couldn't find any evidence of it in his lungs. Finally they let him go home and I had to wake him every hour to make sure he was all right. No wonder Marc loves mechanics—he has motor oil in his veins.

Right before Marc’s second birthday, he got pneumonia and was so sick that the doctor planned to admit him. However, when we brought him back to the doctor that night to be admitted, he was better, so the doctor decided to let us take him home. Then, just as he was getting better, he drank the whole bottle of erythromycin (antibiotic) the doctor had given him. We rushed him back to the ER where they poured syrup of ipecac and five glasses of water in him, and even gagged him, but he refused to vomit. So they strapped him into a papoose and washed out his stomach; he fought and screamed and raised a ruckus, but they finally got it out—and put tubes in his infected ears at the same time.

When Marlowe was four-years-old, my widowed father remarried, and I took the three children to Utah for his wedding. Soon after we returned to Texas, my visiting teachers were at my house, when Marlowe came running in and pulled me aside to “whisper” (so loud that he could be heard in the street) that the neighbor kids, Tommy and Sue, (fourth graders), were doing “what people get married to do.”

Of course my visiting teachers were embarrassed and I tried to get Marlowe to wait until they left to tell me what the neighbor kids were doing, but he wouldn’t be put off, so I cautiously asked him what Tommy and Sue were doing.

He was very hesitant to tell me, but mumbled, “Oh, you know.”

“No, I don’t know,” I said trying to stay calm.

I tried to excuse myself for a minute to talk to Marlowe, and went in the other room to ask him but I knew the visiting teachers could hear every word.

“Now what were Sue and Tommy doing?” I asked, holding my breath.

“You know, what Grandpa and his new wife got married to do.” I wondered if Marlowe could have overheard something at the wedding, but I persevered.

“No, I don’t know. Tell me what they are doing.”

He hid behind me and whispered as he blushed. “They’re . . . you know . . . KISSING!” I nearly fell over with relief.

Family Gatherings

"In the end, life teaches us what is important, and that is family." -Stephen Covey

I dreamed last night of a family gathering in my youth. There were aunts and

uncles, cousins, my parents and my siblings. We were laughing and talking and I felt such a warmth and love and sense of belonging. I know why I dreamed such a dream; This past week we have had my daughter and son-in-law here from Chicago to seal their adopted son in the temple and have him blessed and given a name in church. All of my children were here for this special occasion, as well as most of their children, many of my siblings, cousins, and other family. In fact during the blessing ceremony, the chapel was completely filled with family and friends.

Family gatherings during special occasions, weddings, christenings, funerals, Thanksgivings, Christmases, Easters, and many other holidays may be a common occurrence, but it is also an important binding experience. It is the glue that holds families together from generation to generation. Someone said, “Families that play together stay together, especially when their play is uplifting and wholesome. Family vacations, holidays, birthday celebrations, and other activities build strong bonds and feelings of self-worth. The phrase “Remember when we…” is sure to bring love and laughter in the years to come.” –Unknown

I remember my family gatherings when I was a child. I recall getting together with my cousins on both sides of my family—I even remember going to stay with my cousin in Brigham City. After my mother died when I was 20 years old, it was her sister, my Aunt Ruth, who was the link to her family, who kept us close to her family. It is because of Aunt Ruth that I am still close to my cousins, Elaine and Cindy, and their brothers, and that I contacted my cousin Jean Hendrickson Fisher when we lived near each other in Omaha, Nebraska. Family is essential to me.

My father’s family was closer, both because my father was alive to associate with them, and because they lived nearby. There were cousins near my age that I was friends with, and my father’s family had family reunions. I recall my parents getting together with his cousins and having parties and having fun.

I have tried to replicate extended family gatherings for my own although it was a challenge while we were in the military and far from family for most of the older children’s lives. They did not have a tradition of getting together with cousins or aunts and uncles because there were none close to us. However, since we moved to Utah 21 years ago, we have tried to be very involved with our extended families. That was the reason I was so determined to move back to Utah when we retired.

Maybe because our nuclear family was so isolated in the military, we had to depend on each other so much. Just as our children have supported each other by attending each other’s school activities when they were younger, whether it was sports or theater, they have continued to support each other by attending each others’ weddings, the baptisms of their children, or in the case of the past week, the sealing of baby Aiden to Diana and Jason.

They have also tried to get together with each other at the cabin near Yellowstone Park (that belongs to Athena’s husband’s family), or at our house such as when we got back from California, or at least once a year or two. They do this despite the fact that they are living throughout the country and it involves flying great distances and making sacrifices in time and work.

Our family activities have changed through the years. I remember that years ago when they were mostly young adults, they always used to go to movies after Thanksgiving dinner or at family gatherings.

Then they used to play board games until late in the night long after the “old folks” and “little ones” went to bed. We have often gone bowling. This is something every one of all ages could enjoy.

This past weekend when all were gathered at our house, we played participation games—adults, young adults, teens, children and even little ones. It was quite funny to see us gathered in teams, with older ones helping younger ones play “Taboo” and do the challenge and pass out and pay the penalties. It wasn’t as sophisticated as if it were only adults, but the children enjoyed seeing Papa having his wrists “velcroed to his head,” Uncle Bryan having to play an air guitar every time a bell sounded and 12-year-old Jenni having to quack before she could talk. But hopefully someday they will have their own families and remember what they did when they gathered with their extended family. Then they will tell their children, “When I was your age and went to Grandpa’s house, we . . . ."