This little piggy...

Babies take everything so seriously, and the adults around them are always joking.  Here is a picture of Papa playing "this little piggy" with Kayla.  She's not sure exactly what he is doing to her toes - and why does everyone else call them toes and Papa calls them piggies?  She is 16 months old in this picture and our only grandchild.

SESAME Street, home of Big Bird and Elmo, has celebrated its 40th anniversary as the longest running children's show on US television.( Nov.2009)

Seseme Street had just been on the air for less than a year when Mike was born.  I was a new stay at home mom with a very colicky baby and found that even at a very young age, Mike loved to watch TV.  When Seseme Street would come on I would put him in his bouncy chair in front of the TV for a short time.  He grew up knowing all the characters well.  His favorite, at least for awhile, was Big Bird.  My folks came down for his 2nd birthday and bought him a Big Bird which came in a box.    He loved the gift (and his grandparents) but he loved the box too.  Here is a picture of him and Big Bird in the box (covered up with a towel by my mom).

Miss Kitty

Miss Kitty showed up at our doorstep when the boys were young and looked like she was starving.  We felt sorry for her and fed her and that began a long relationship with her as our pet.  We named her Miss Kitty from the Gunsmoke series and because she was a kitty and was a female.  Because we didn't know where she came from and because of Brent's allergies, we never let her in the house - at least not intentionally.  She would sneak in whenever she could - and always headed for Brent's room.  She was a cat with many lives.  She loved to sneak in the laundry room and hide.  It was always a surprise when we would open the door after several days and she would streak out and head for the pool for a drink.  One time we went on vacation for over a week and she was locked in there the whole time.  About the time Brent left home, we never saw Miss Kitty again.  We don't know what happened to her, but we prefer to think she found another home to feed her and that had kids.

Lucky Charms

Jim was 3 years old when Sid and I started dating and "going together".  Because of his young age and having to go to bed early and in order for Sid and I to spend time together, I would go over to their apartment for a few hours in the evening.  This was their nightly routine that I observed.  Sid would tell Jimmy it was bed time.  Jimmy would say he was hungry.  Sid would fix him a bowl of Lucky Charms cereal.  Jimmy would eat the charms - which were marshmallows - and decided he wasn't hungry anymore.  Sid would throw the cereal out and put Jimmy to bed.  5 minutes or so later, Jimmy would decide he was still hungry.  They would repeat the cereal, marshmallow, bed routine.  This would not happen just one time but several times every night - night after night.  Not being a parent yet, I did not understand why this kept happening.  After becoming a parent, I understood completely.

Need for Speed

The picture of Sid was taken in about 1967. He loved to ride and often rode during his lunch with his friends - and they all rode as fast as they could. It was after our marriage and during one of these wild rides that Sid had a serious accident on his motorcycle. His thigh was caught up under the fender and it sliced the inside of his thigh deeply. Mike and Brent are here today because the slice was on the left thigh and not the right. The picture of Ben (Bubba) is so similar to Papa that Brent (or Sari) put these two pictures together. I can see Ben riding a real motorcycle when he gets a little older.

Twins

When I was about 5 years old I had this studio picture taken. Notice the long curly hair and the crossed ankles. When Caity was 5 she had this picture taken. Long curly hair and crossed ankles. Because the pictures were so much alike, Brent (or Sari) put them together. Caity was so thrilled that we were posed the same. Caity looks like her dad, I look like my dad - different faces but from a similar source.  Her dad is a lot cuter than my dad.

Brentisms.

When Brent was little he had a unique speech problem. He had a great vocabulary but the doctors said it was if he had learned to speak in Sweden. "Y" replaced "L" and "J". "Lucky" was "Yucky" and "Jimmy" was "Yimmy" - a nickname we still call him today. When Mike got to do something Brent wanted to do, he would say "Mike is so yucky!" Mike didn't like the sound of that and it usually ended up in an argument. He also had a different way of expressing things. Brent got sick once and threw up. He told me he "overflowed", which really makes sense. Instead of a "tickle" in his throat, he said he had a "giggle" in his throat. That's a happy thought. This is a picture of Brent taken in Sept. 1977 when he was 4, almost 5. Ben looks a lot like this now - just a different hair style.