The Caterpillar

I snuck away to spend Christmas with my grands in Atlanta and forgot to tell anyone in blogland! But am back now and exhausted, so hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and won't be too cold or snowed in to enjoy a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year!

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My last two posts have been about my oldest child and daughter, Toni, and how she liked to manipulate her younger sister, Sandi. They had very different personalities, for sure, and I thought I’d give you a little idea of just how different.

Besides being manipulative with Sandi, Toni was also a very domestic little girl. At age 2, without anyone asking her, she lined her shoes up side by side on her part of the shared closet floor. Toni liked her things put away and her bed was always made with her favorite stuffed animals nicely arranged. Okay, she was a bit older when she started making her bed, but the shoe thing and putting up her stuff was always there.

Sandi was just the opposite when it came to her things; there was always clutter on her side of the rooms they shared and she never picked anything up unless threated by me. Sandi loved school and she loved to read. What I learned really early was never to punish her by sending her to her room because she would just lie on her bed and read; she was in heaven. Toni, however, would suffer greatly from the same punishment.

The neatness versus extreme clutter became worse as the girls got older and there were often loud arguments about Sandi having left something of hers on Toni’s side of the room. I tried everything creative I could think of to get Sandi to become less messy, but nothing ever worked, even the tape on the floor to divide the room equally.

One evening, I was listening to a typical argument coming from their room, then I heard running, then I heard a sharp “Owwww!” followed by more sounds of obvious pain. I rushed into their room, found Toni sitting on Sandi’s bed, holding her foot and crying. Sandi was working very hard at keeping the very large grin from spreading further on her little face, but she failed. Toni had broken her toe while chasing Sandi around their room, trying to make Sandi pick up stuff that had landed on her side… divided equally by tape on the floor, by the way. Toni had broken the big toe on one of her feet when she ran into one of legs on Sandi’s bed while chasing her, most likely to do bodily harm once Sandi was caught. Since Toni perpetrated the incident, I couldn’t punish Sandi for simply trying to get out of her sister’s reach, but the next day, I removed the tape on the floor as it was obviously not working.

I often wonder if the neatness versus clutter was the main reason behind Toni’s unholy treatment of Sandi. Many years later, when they became adults and could laugh about it, they told me of the things Toni had done to Sandi, like tying her to a tree in our yard for over an hour, and like enticing Sandi and then trapping her in the attic by keeping the pulldown door closed with a broom. (I later learned that Sandi loved being in the attic because there was a huge box of books up there and an overhead light!)

When they first told me of these particular incidents, I was totally shocked because Sandi never squealed on her sister. And the fact remains that I was ignorant of this kind of treatment for many years, except for the manipulation which I tried to control by almost daily checking their individual belongings. But I was painfully aware of one particular incident of torture, intended or not.

The girls were about 10 and 11 when we moved to Durham, North Carolina for my husband’s job. We rented this really cool house that had tons of fruit trees in the backyard and was just down the street from their school. It also had a renovated attic room that was extremely large and could more easily be divided into spaces for the girls, which made them happier. Another plus was that I was able to land an executive secretary position at General Telephone & Electronics whose headquarters was only 1 mile from the house.

After school, the girls were instructed to call me the minute they got home and they were to do their homework before play, which I would check when I got home. It was spring and the fruit trees were flourishing, as were the caterpillars that lived in them. Typically, both of my girls were afraid of anything that had creepy, crawly legs and with my insane fear of cockroaches, I respected that and probably unintentionally nurtured it.

One day, Toni called to tell me they were home. I heard screaming in the background and knew it was Sandi. My heart went up into my throat as I demanded Toni tell me what was wrong with her sister, my vivid imagination running wild. Giggling, she said, “Nothing.” Sandi continued screaming indecipherable words and crying. I told Toni to stay right where she was as I was on my way. I yelled to my boss that I’d be right back, jumped in my car and left a skid mark in the parking lot as I pulled out as fast as I could. Exactly 6 minutes later, I pulled in under our carport and saw the girls… Sandi’s face was red from crying and she was still sobbing a bit but was no longer crying. Toni, on the other hand, looked guilty as hell.

I hugged Sandi close to me and asked her what had happened. When they got home, they headed to the back door which was usual, but along the way, a caterpillar had dropped down from a tree and landed on Sandi’s back. Toni saw it and told her about it which is when Sandi started screaming to get it off her, jumping up and down and frightened to death. Toni just stood there laughing, and only after hearing I was on my way home did she brush the bug off Sandi’s back with a branch.

I was furious at Toni for having let her younger sister suffer while she did nothing because had the caterpillar landed on her back, she would have been heard at my office. I was furious at myself for letting them become latchkey kids because we couldn’t afford a sitter. I grabbed Toni by the arm and told her how mad and disappointed I was at her, sent her to her room and grounded her for a week.

Then I asked where was the caterpillar because I sure didn’t want it running loose, ready to drop down on someone else’s back, namely my own. Toni looked at me and pointed to the left front tire on my car… and there was a smashed mess that I could only assume was the remains of a caterpillar after it was run over by a multi-ton car.

For one week, Toni came home, went to her room, did her homework and waited there until I got home from work. After dinner, she went back to her room and stayed until bath and bedtime. She was miserable and Sandi knew it. Sandi smiled a lot that entire week.

They became the best of friends as adults; Toni is still a neat freak and Sandi is still as messy as ever, but they accept each other as they are which is a tribute to their "differentness" and all anyone can expect. Today, they would defend each other to the death.

Jane
Gaston Studio

The Burning Bed

I’ve told you how precocious my oldest daughter, Toni, is, but did I also tell you how she good she was at manipulation? Oh, she was a master at this, especially with her younger sister, Sandi.

After the little garage, we moved into a ‘real’ house, but the manipulation began as soon as Sandi was able to walk. And Sandi was a baby that refused to crawl! Nope, Sandi must have felt it would be a waste of time to crawl first, because one day, she just stood up and walked across the room at age 10 months.

Anyway, I was always conscious about buying birthday and Christmas gifts equally so that there would be no envy among the girls, but no matter what the toys were, Toni always wanted Sandi’s… and hers. They were taught to share their toys, but Toni was a little rough on hers at times. When her doll dress got dirty, she would talk Sandi into trading, and it was like this about any kind of toy... but it went further.

When we moved into the little brick house, we bought the girls twin maple beds. They were told not to color on the beds or put stickers on them. But sure enough, Toni did her own thing one day and placed two stickers of some sort on her headboard. I had already washed off crayon marks on her bed, but I didn’t remove the stickers. Over the next few days, Toni had tried to pick off the stickers with her fingernails, so that now, instead of just unwanted stickers on her headboard, she had a mess. I waited.

Our ritual at night was that after a bath and clean pajamas, I would read a favorite book to them. One evening, I had sent them to their bedroom while I cleaned up the bathroom, and told them to select a book. When I went in a few minutes later, Toni was lying in Sandi’s bed. When I questioned her, the conversation with my three year and two year old went like this:

“But mom, Sandi wanted my bed!”

“Sandi, did you ask Toni for her bed?”

“No mam.”

“Well, why are you in Toni’s bed.”

“She wanted my bed, without the stickers.”

“So, she asked you to switch beds with her.”

“Yes mam.”

I sighed.

“Toni, you cannot have Sandi’s bed. You put the stickers on yours, so you have to live with them.”

‘But mom! I can’t get the stickers off!”

I sighed.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s your bed, so get in it.”

And they switched. The next day, I removed the stickers from the headboard as I felt she had learned her lesson.

A few nights later, the electricity had gone off in our neighborhood, so I lit a couple of candles and gathered the girls with me on the couch to read their bedtime story to them. That’s when I realized that Toni was holding Sandi’s favorite stuffed animal and Sandi’s arms were empty. So I took the animal from Toni and sent her into her bedroom to get her own stuffed animal.

I began reading the book but a few minutes later, I smelled smoke. I jumped up and ran into the girl’s bedroom and sure enough, smoke was coming out from under Toni’s bed. Bill was not home as he was working a second job at night, so I yelled across the street for my neighbor’s husband. Chuck ran over, saw the mattress was smoldering so hauled it out to the street where he quickly corrected the situation.

When I questioned Toni, she said she had taken a candle to look under her bed where the stuffed animal was hiding and when she saw the fire, she was too scared to tell me. I could understand that, but it could have been a really bad situation, so I told her about the dangers of fire, lit candles, etc.

After the crisis was over, Chuck said that it wasn’t the mattress that was smoking, but the netting under the mattress so we quickly removed the tattered bits of netting. The mattress itself was fine, except for some gray smoke marks, so we declared it was safe to return to the bed. I could tell Toni did not want to sleep in her bed because even at that young age, she liked everything neat and pretty.

The next morning however, I found that some time during the night, she had talked Sandi into again switching beds with her. Of course, I made her change again and spoke to firmly about being responsible for her own actions, as much as I could with a three year old.

They kept those beds for several years, and at least twice more during that time, I would find Toni lying in Sandi’s bed and would make her change, once again. She didn’t like it, especially that it was a constant reminder of the dangers of fire and of her manipulation of her sister, but she slept in it. However, that lesson didn’t stop her manipulation.

Jane
Gaston Studio

Of importance and of no importance...

I’ve been tagged by Ken at Grumpy Old Ken to list 8 personal facts, of no importance, but I’ve decided to also some things that are of importance to me alone, so here goes:

1) I’ve had a muscle spasm in my back for well over a month but the combination of therapeutic massage and chiropractic treatments make me feel there’s light at the end of the tunnel. This has curtailed much of what I normally do on a daily basis but I’ve read even more books that usual, which is a good thing.

2) Since my toy poodle, Lexi, has bad claws (read my post Lexi’s Claws) I usually do her grooming. Today, while using the clippers, I left my poor sweet girl shorter in a couple of places because I had the wrong clipper head and didn’t realize it at first! I refused to make it all shorter, so she’ll just have to wear a t-shirt when she’s in public until it grows out again.

3) I was made to wear a girdle while performing in Hitchcock’s Rear Window (play) when I was in the 10th grade. My drama couch, who was also my English teacher and a very, very old woman, told me I undulated when walking and she “just couldn’t have such indecency on a public stage.” She made me feel really bad about myself until I looked it up in the dictionary… then I felt very good about my teenage self.

4) Just recently, I did the evaluation part of Wii Fit Sports Plus, and discovered that my balance is really great and my age is 59 (I’ll be 68 on December 15), so that made me feel good because I haven’t exercised in many years and I continue to eat milk and cookies late at night when I can’t sleep. Go, Wii Fit!

5) When I was in the second grade, my grandmother gave me a watch that was her mothers. She, and my mother, told me to not wear it unless it was a special occasion. I was good about that part, but I was bad about carrying it around in my pocket. One night at a drive-in theatre, I lost it when going to the concession stand. No one knew until I was having an emergency appendectomy a couple of weeks later and I confessed to my grandmother on, what I thought, was my death bed. She forgave me, then told me I wasn’t dying.

6) I have a ‘dent’ on the top of my left hand where a classmate of mine stabbed me with her very sharp pencil in the first grade. Obviously, I incurred her wrath but for the life of me, I don’t remember how. Oddly enough, it didn’t bleed very long.

7) Also on my left hand, my pointing finger doesn’t point straight out; it actually points up from the knuckle. This is not a deformity I was born with, but a result of my own stupidity. When I was about 7, I was trying to “whittle” a piece of wood like my Uncle Johnny, with a pocket knife I wasn’t supposed to even know where it was, let alone be using it. Unfortunately, I was whittling with the sharp part facing toward me and I cut my finger just below the knuckle. Since I was doing something I wasn’t supposed to be doing, I went to my much younger Uncle Bobby and he bandage it for me. Neither of us knew the tendon was cut and when it healed, it contracted, bringing the end of my finger up permanently. So when I point at you with that finger, just know I’m not trying to be rude, well, except for pointing, of course.

8) I married my cousin and that made my Aunt Lois suddenly my mother in law, and all her children, my cousins, suddenly my sisters and brothers in law. Actually, we weren’t blood related as I was adopted by my stepfather, but it did allow them all welcome me into the family a second time.

To pass this along, I’d like to ask some of my newer followers to take up the baton and tell whatever you would like about yourselves.

Brightened Boy

Chatty Crone

Cimba7200’s Thoughts

Life, the Universe and Everything

My Southern Touch

Smiling Sally

We’re all in a virtual world here, so don’t hold back.

One Year in Blogland

Can’t believe I’ve been blogging for one whole year!

Of course, I received absolutely no comments on my first few posts, but we all have to start from nothing, right? I first began blogging to promote traffic to my retail website, but after a few posts about hand painted this and that, I thought to myself, this is really boring to me, so it must be to others as well. My consensus was, if I’m going to spend my precious time writing and setting up a post, it should at least be different from all the other people out there who also have retail websites.

So after a few posts in December with still no comments, I began posting about other things… and by mid-January, I had two whole comments; count them, t-w-o! And while I was trying to think about what I wanted to blog about other than my “stuff”, I was also trying to find blogs that I wanted to read and participate in. It took me a while to realize that everyone has a blog roll, and viola, I was finding blogs I actually liked! And then, I discovered following. Wow. How on earth did people like Vodkamom; David at Authorblog; and Willow at Life at Willow Manor have thousands of followers?

Anyway, finding that most of these people were blogging about their life, I thought that’s a great idea. I mean, I‘ll be 68 this month for heaven‘s sake; there must have been something I had done in that amount of time that was a little bit interesting. So I started blogging about things I had experienced such as southern cockroaches, a particular recurring dream, and about somewhat humorous faux pas in my earlier life.

Then I started getting more than two comments which really made me feel good about my writing, so in early April, I started writing stories of my living and working abroad and I was in heaven with lots of encouraging comments… lots to me is more than two!

Among my very first and most faithful commenters are Beth at What I Should Have Said; Michel at Facts Are Strictly Optional; Suzanne at The Question of the Day; Derrick at Melrose Musings; Sheila at The Quintessential Magpie; Fragrant Liar; Lou Cinda at Tattered Hydrangeas; Nikki at Blah, Blah, Blah Blog;  and Words of Wisdom from a Smart Mouth Broad. And of course, my daughter, Toni at Dee-Zigns Jewelry, who had just returned to blogging.

These wonderful people found and followed me from the beginning and I want to thank them collectively for giving me the confidence to charge ahead... and I want to thank all of those who jumped on my little wagon and remain with me to this day. You're on my blog roll so I won't be singling you out, but I hope you know how important you are to me!

Then I discovered awards when Beth at What I Should Have Said presented me (and Michel) with a Tuesday’s Tribute award. What an honor it was to receive that first award, and each one that came after was received with equal humility and pride. And I shared every one of them, unlike some people I know named Michel. When I received my first Post of the Day from David at Authorblog, I was over the top.

Throughout the following months until the present, I’ve discovered and am following many fantastic bloggers, so many of whom I consider to be friends even though we’ve never met. And it’s this feeling of friendship and sharing and closeness that keeps me blogging and I imagine will continue to do so for a long time to come… or at least until I run out of stories and/or memory, whichever comes first. At my age, you can never tell.

So I want to thank each and every one of you who has ever read even one of my posts, and whether you’ve ever commented or not. I feel I’m being followed by some of the very best people in blogland and I thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for letting me tell you my stories and taking the time to read them.

Jane
Gaston Studio

Our Little Garage

I married for love, not money. When my husband, Bill, and I first married, we lived with his family for a short while, then we lived in the upstairs apartment of an old Victorian of my paternal grandparents in downtown Savannah. This was in the early 1960s.

When I became pregnant with my second child, Sandi, we moved into a two car garage that had been renovated into an apartment. It wasn’t the Taj Mahal, but it was clean and had two bedrooms which was perfect for my daughter, Toni, and soon to be new baby.

Toni was precocious and curious about all things. One weekend morning in dead winter, it had snowed overnight. Yep, the occasional snow in the deep south does happen, about once every million years. Toni slept in her crib, but had long since figured out how to climb out and on this particular morning when we woke, she had not only climbed out but had pulled up a chair and opened the lock on the front door.

Like any mother would, I panicked. I instantly pictured my adorable little blonde haired girl in her sleepers walking around in the freezing snow, alone and frightened. Okay, it was only two inches of snow, but I have always had a vivid imagination. Bill threw on a coat and ran to our landlord’s house to see if she had maybe gone visiting as they often kept cookies for her.

I was very pregnant but ran out to look in the back yard, screaming her name like a banshee. With the landlords, we split up to canvass the neighborhood. It was only a few minutes later that Bill found her, playing in the snow behind the church that was right across the street. Her little hands were freezing and her sleeper feet were soaked, but she was fine and smiling. Bill immediately installed a lock on the front door, too high for her to reach.

We had a huge yard but it wasn’t fenced, and it seemed every time I was busy changing Sandi’s diapers, Toni would decide to “go see daddy” and would wander away. She never went far before I finished what I was doing and ran to collect her, but she needed constant watching if she was outside.

In the kitchen was one of those old type refrigerators with the tiny little freezer at the top, but that was okay. It worked just fine but there was something about the handle that intrigued my then two year old child. Toni was constantly opening and closing the refrigerator and yes, it got on my nerves to be also constantly correctly her.

Bill was a very handy man so I knew to find the stud, hammer in a nail as a starter hole, then screw in the hook. One day I had been using the hammer to put up some hooks in the kitchen for potholders and was using the top of the fridge to keep the hammer and hardware. Toni was opening and closing the refrigerator door, as usual, and I was telling her in a firm voice, as usual, to stop. And, as usual, she wasn’t listening.

At that time, I spanked my children, on the bottom, with my hand, when they persisted in misbehaving. On this day, I had spanked Toni once and she had gone into her bedroom to pout, but soon, she was back in the kitchen, at the fridge door, opening and closing, opening and closing, and occasionally sneaking a peak at me to see if I noticed.

I noticed all right and on this occasion, I suddenly grabbed the hammer and started beating on the door handle. I beat that handle right off the fridge while Toni stood there watching me, her eyes huge in what I suspect was fright. It only took a few seconds to beat the handle off, and then I scooped Toni up in my arms, went into the living room and cried and cried. I couldn’t believe I had been in such a rage and did such a thing in front of my baby girl.

After the crying jag was over and Toni realized she was in no danger of being hammered by me, she went to play with her toys while I tried to figure out how to open the door so that I could make dinner for my family. When Bill came home that evening, I was embarrassed to tell him what I had done. He listened patiently, then rigged up a screen door spring that was attached to the remains of the handle and wrapped around the side of the fridge where it could be attached to a screw he had placed on the back.

In this manner, I used that same old fridge for the remaining two years we lived in that small garage. Since it was a fridge my grandparents wasn’t using, at least we didn’t owe our landlords a new one. Many times, if I wasn’t careful unhooking the spring from the screw in back, it would dart forward quickly and hit me in the stomach. I figured this was my pain for having subjected my daughter to my anger.

Many years later, Bill told me he could have put a new handle on the door but he didn’t because he wanted me to be reminded of how I had reacted to a child’s curiosity. He felt the situation could have been handled differently and, of course, he was right. Toni couldn’t open that fridge again but she would watch me as I unhooked and rehooked the spring and I was sure she was going to give it a try some time, but she never did.

Thankfully, this incident didn’t deter Toni’s precociousness or curiosity and I’ll tell you about some of her escapades in later posts. But this is a child who loved/loves me unconditionally and has become one of the best mothers I’ve ever known. Where she learned how, I’ll never know but I’m glad she did as I have two beautiful and well behaved grandchildren, Erika and Blake. I’m so proud of Toni for being her independent, creative self, and for being such a good mom.

Jane
Gaston Studio